Tuesday, 29 July 2014

By on July 29th, 2014 in personal, science kits

09:16 – In the rush to build science kits this time of year, one thing I keep forgetting is to hold back enough chemical bags to make up refill kits. For example, when I made up another batch of chemistry kits over the weekend, I held back two sets of the regulated and non-regulated chemical bags. I shipped one of those yesterday and the other this morning, taking me down to zero available. That means to fill the next order I get for a refill kit I’ll have to remove those bags from a completed chemistry kit. Same deal on biology kits. I held back four sets of chemical bags for those, of which I have only one left.


For many years, I’ve been the official maintainer of the Cutieness Index (CI), a list of women ranked numerically by cutieness. Officially, the scores ran from 0.000 to 0.999, until Amber Marshall completely blew away the top score by earning more than 0.999. (My ranking spreadsheet ran out of room on Amber’s entry, so I have no idea how much higher she actually scored.) I suspect the other cuties may be annoyed with Amber for messing up the curve.

Until Amber arrived on the scene, Emily VanCamp had held the top position for several years, at 0.983. But Barbara and I are now up to series five of Dawson’s Creek, and Katie Holmes is now at 0.979 and gaining on Emily.

46 Comments and discussion on "Tuesday, 29 July 2014"

  1. Ray Thompson says:

    There goes OFD, posting links to pictures of himself again.

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    I can’t tell the difference.

  3. Chad says:

    I’ve always been a big fan of Winona Ryder (her looks more than her acting). I’m pretty sure she does not age. She’s pushing 45 and she still looks 18 and very attractive. She looks the same today as she did in the 1990s. Also, I’m a big fan of Natalie Portman. I’m not too terribly picky. I could probably add many more to the list: Emily Deschanel and her sister Zooey Deschanel, Stana Katic, Diane Kruger, Morena Baccarin , Megan Boone, Jessica Stroup, Renée Felice Smith, Rachel Nichols, Jaimie Alexander, Michelle Dockery, and on and on… ☺

    When I was a kid I had a crush on Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis, but what adolescent Trekkie didn’t? Later on that geeky crush moved on to Jolene Blalock (only when she was dressed up a like a Vulcan) and Jeri Ryan. These days I’m mostly over the sci-fi women obsession. ☺

  4. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    All very attractive women, but physical attractiveness is just one element of the CI rating. (Like many young women, Amber Marshall has gotten prettier as she aged from her teens into her mid-20’s.) And there are many stunningly pretty women who don’t score high CI numbers. Of those you mentioned, only Jessica Stroup has a CI rating above 0.95.

  5. OFD says:

    “I can’t tell the difference.”

    Must be the residual effects from bad ganja in SEA; didn’t the NCO’s warn you about that stuff?

    OK, that was just a joke; here I am, really:

    http://tracycooperposey.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Edward-longshanks.jpg

  6. Chad says:

    RBT: Your WordPress Daynotes are responding really slowly on my end. I thought it was my connection, but most everything else I visit on the web is pretty instant. Any known network issues with your host?

  7. Ray Thompson says:

    didn’t the NCO’s warn you about that stuff?

    Yeh, they did. Even had pictures. But I was young and invincible.

  8. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I don’t see any slow-downs here.

  9. OFD says:

    “Where do these ladies:…”

    Same old, same old, with these ignorant hadji scum; a billion of them worldwide would evidently prefer living in medieval desert theocracy squalor, including the women. The religion of peace, which expands via fire, sword and atrocity piled on atrocity.

    “But I was young and invincible.”

    Weren’t we all.

    “1 in 3 Americans have Debt in Collections”

    Been there, done that. And then we look at our state and Fed governments and how much they take from us at gunpoint in taxes and fees. Ya think maybe we could pay our bills a bit more easily if our money wasn’t getting skimmed off the top by authorized pirates and brigands and statist robber barons?

  10. dkreck says:

    Where do these ladies:
    fall on the CI? 😉

    About the 12th century.

  11. Ray Thompson says:

    Well, that is indeed odd.

    I attached my SSD to another system as a secondary drive and downloaded Intel’s SSD tools. The tool said my drive had 100% life left. I ran the diagnostics which reads every sector. No issues. I ran the diagnostics that write and read to unused portions of the drive. No issues.

    So I reinstalled the SSD in my system and all is normal. I then ran the Intel SSD tools on my system. Everything came up normal.

    So I don’t know what happened. Maybe unplugging and plugging in the SATA cables did something. Pournelle has many times traced problems to cables.

    Oh well, back in business with no loss of data or programs.

  12. SteveF says:

    I’m probably one of those Americans “with debt in collections”. When I moved out of an apartment 13 years ago the utility company didn’t stop the billing until someone else moved in, four months later. (Yes, I told them I was moving out. Didn’t get confirmation in writing, though.) Every couple years I get a letter about the past-due debt, presumably as they sell it to another collections company. And every time I tell them I dispute the charge and that’s the last I hear of it … until a couple years later.

  13. OFD says:

    “Pournelle has many times traced problems to cables.”

    And likewise here, both at work and at home. Always first thing I check, besides the power.

    I see they’re now coming out with 8TB hard drives and higher soon. I’ve got a 1TB drive on this Windows 8 box and a 1.5TB on the Windows Server 2012R2 machine and still have tons of space left on both; I moved all the movies and tee-vee shows to an external drive.

    In other nooz, I have to screw around with the one (disabled) vehicle we now own on the day before a job interview, and rent a car to get to said interview and back again. I need this chit like a hole in the head; called for a AAA tow (to bring it 60 miles down to the garage that had it last Friday) and was told that because there’s still gas in the car, they can’t tow it until an FD person checks it out and signs off on it. But right now the local FD is all-hands out on a structure fire. So here I sit, messing around with this.

    It would take a bile specialist.

  14. Lynn McGuire says:

    Emily Vancamp was Agent 13 in the latest Captain America movie and did a splendid job as a SHIELD agent.

  15. SteveF says:

    OFD, why don’t you just obtain a car from the people down the road? They would seem to have plenty of cars which run. From your description, it’s possible the cars are incapable of going slow and they might be kinda loud for going to an interview, but you can probably just coast the last quarter mile. Really, there’s no reason not to grab one of their spare cars.

  16. SteveF says:

    Oh, and you should do it in the wee hours, so as not to wake them up with your request.

  17. OFD says:

    “…you should do it in the wee hours, so as not to wake them up with your request.”

    Let’s see here…you live in the Capital District, correct? Vampire State have pretty librul firearms laws that you know of? No? Dint think so.

    Here we have zero firearms laws. Zero.

    If I was to go tinker with some peeps’ cars down the road here, one of them peeps might come out with a firearm or sumthin and I might have one, too, and before you know it there’s a firefight/gun battle going on in the ‘hood here. Then the cops send the SWAT out, followed by the National Guard…oh wait…they’re over in the Sandbox. Again.

    These peeps also tend to have large, vicious and untrained dawgs on their premises.

    Rather than run through yet another nocturnal mission in my old age and decrepitude, it may well be that discretion is the bettuh paht of valluh and I should just continue wid the vehicle I already rented and will be picking up in the AM. So I go to my interview with my nice shiny dress shoes unspattered with mud and blood and my remaining hair ain’t messed up.

    I do, however, appreciate your creativity.

    And next time I need a car in the Capital District, I’ll keep your suggestion in mind, as they’re really strict about guns in the Vampire State and most peeps prolly go along with that, amirite?

  18. SteveF says:

    Heh. If you’re around here and need a car, let me know. You can probably borrow my van. You’d have to be seen driving something as uncool as a minivan, but it’s in close to perfect running condition.

    (I drive a minivan mostly because often enough I need to haul five kids or a load of manure (assuming you acknowledge a difference between the two loads, which I don’t) or what-not. The other reason is because I’m an extremely aggressive driver. Driving a minivan forces me to keep the aggression down to mostly-tolerable-around-other-people levels.)

  19. OFD says:

    RIP, Sarge. One of so many gone too soon.

    “The other reason is because I’m an extremely aggressive driver.”

    You’d fit in well in the Greater Boston area or Montreal. I love to drive around in MA now with our VT plates; the locals assume I’m a clueless rural bumpkin who can’t drive there, haha. I grew up there; learned how to drive there; have had advanced emergency reaction driver training; never had an accident in 45 years; and know the area cold. So the Massholes get a big shock when they see me in action.

  20. Lynn McGuire says:

    Here we have zero firearms laws. Zero.

    Cool! You have open carry! I open carried in Nevada last year but it was the opposite of exhilarating. It did not bother the McDonald’s employees though.

    We may get open carry of short guns in Texas next year. Although, I will argue that my S&W 629 counts as a long gun. Even with a six inch barrel.

  21. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    North Carolina has always had open-carry. Concealed-carry requires a permit. But the open-carry law has loopholes for any cop who wants to bust someone for carrying. The crime they’ll charge you with is called something like “going armed to the terror of the public”.

    Even Vermont’s gun laws are too restrictive for my taste.

  22. MrAtoz says:

    Last year in Vegas, a man decided to walk down a street with an open carry pistol. The cops stopped him, asked for his “blue card” (background check, he had it) and harassed him on why he was carrying until they arrested him. He was let go by the DA with no charges. I’m not sure if he sued or anything. I’m sure the cops, like Mr. Bob said, can arrest anyone in NV who open carries on some technicality. And they will.

  23. Lynn McGuire says:

    Vampire State have pretty librul firearms laws that you know of?

    Every time you type “vampire state”, I think of Kendra in Buffy saying vampire in that Caribbean accent of hers. Dadgum funny.

  24. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Bianca Lawson is > 0.900 on the CI.

  25. OFD says:

    “Even Vermont’s gun laws are too restrictive for my taste.”

    Eh? There aren’t any.

    Unless you mean they should have one REQUIRING open- and concealed-carry. Which would be fine by me, to a point; after all there are many pwesshus wittle bunny wabbat libtards who are scared to death of firearms; the late Colonel Cooper called them “hoplophobes.” We mustn’t make them nervous, now…

  26. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “Eh? There aren’t any.”

    I was under the impression that Vermont condoned federal restrictions on automatic weapons, destructive devices, silencers, sawed-off shotguns, nuclear weapons, etc. etc.

    Also, doesn’t Vermont restrict felons and minors from possessing/carrying firearms? As well as restricting possession of firearms in schools, courts, and other government buildings?

  27. OFD says:

    “Gun dealers are required to keep a record of all handgun sales. It is illegal to carry a gun on school property or in a courthouse. State law preempts local governments from regulating the possession, ownership, transfer, carrying, registration or licensing of firearms.[1] A notable exception however, is that silencers/suppressors are prohibited outside of law enforcement and class III FFL’s.”

    1,) The gun dealer/records thang is a Fed deal; ATF records.

    2.) The bit about school property and courthouses is under fire, haha. The nitwits overreacted in light of the recent school shootings in other parts of the country and look like idiots now. Burlington tried to ban all kinds of stuff and the state told them to STFU and forget it.

    3,) Silencers and suppressors are another Fed deal; with a Class III FFL I’m good, except the Feds impose a $200 tax on the transaction like they’ve been doing with “machine guns.” Anyway, the stuff on silencers, etc. is changing fast out there; classifying them on the basis that they’re the stuff of mob hit men and gangstas is stupider by the hunting season each year. They’re also good for ranges close to residential and urban ‘hoods, cuts down on the racket.

    4,) It ain’t Vermont that prohibits nuclear weapons. Build one here and it will be the Feds who come after you.

  28. Miles_Teg says:

    Sandra Bullock is > 1.900 on the CI.

  29. SteveF says:

    Miles_Teg, you need to recalibrate your instruments. IIRC, you thought Hillary Bitch Clinton was Teh Hawtness, so either her face broke your gear (as it broke many cameras before and since) or you have the pieces connected backward or something.

  30. OFD says:

    I am willing to consider that Miles_Teg’s instruments are in order in regard to La Bullock, but I too remember him fawning over Field Marshal Rodham and if that is still the case, then those instruments are badly damaged indeed. She has got to be one of the most disgustingly fugly trolls since the demise of Golda Meir and that other troll who was a SecState (I’ve expunged her name from my memory banks) and the very fugly Helen Thomas.

  31. Miles_Teg says:

    I agree that Hillary is past her prime, but she *used* to look okay.

  32. OFD says:

    Oh? When was that? I’ve seen pics of her entire life going back to high skool and she was, at her absolute best, a mousy, dowdy, fugly little pig and going by what Billy Goat got on the side all through their “relationship,” he could have done WAY bettuh. But I guess unbridled ambition and zero morality or ethics got them to where they are now and that trumped her fugliness and then some.

    But different strokes for different folks, I reckon. La Bullock is Queen of Hotness next to the drab and now horrific-looking Heroine of Tripoli and Benghazi.

  33. Miles_Teg says:

    She looked pretty good in her Goldwater Girl outfit, and even as late as the early 2000s looked pretty good for a woman that age.

  34. OFD says:

    They must have some really quality ganja down in Oz these days. Either that, or Foster’s has jumped up their content by geometric factors. Or maybe it’s something in the air…

    But…to each his own…wow….

  35. SteveF says:

    Poor, poor Miles_Teg. He was stung or bitten by something poisonous* and it’s rotting his brain. Next thing you know he’ll be announcing he’s going to hold his breath and float up to the moon and mine tritium and sell it back on Earth and use the money to pay Hillary look-alikes to tag-team him. Poor, poor Miles_Teg. What a way to go.

    * Which, to a first approximation, is every damned thing in Australia, including the trees, water, and air.

  36. OFD says:

    Hillary look-alikes? What a nightmare.

  37. Miles_Teg says:

    Okay, okay, I realise now that Dave and Steve have serious eyesight issues, so I’ll present an alternative to Hillary for them to drool over…

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-01/diane-feinstein-waits-to-question-witnesses/5640188

  38. SteveF says:

    Oh, you know how to get any red-blooded American man panting, don’t you, Miles_Teg? Oh, yah, just picture Diane Fineasaswine nude jello-wrestling with Barbara Dumbasaboxofrocks, with Nancy Holdapillowoverherfacesi spraying the whipped cream. Oh, yah…

  39. Miles_Teg says:

    Are Nancy Reagan and Janet Reno still around? You could throw them in the mix too and produce a real OFD/SteveF wet dream… 🙂

  40. OFD says:

    Got wood? No? Throw in Donna Shalala, Madeline Not-Too-Bright, Helen Thomas and Whoopi Goldberg. Notice how all the Dem and libturd fembats are fugly as sin? Wussup wid dat, anyway?

  41. Miles_Teg says:

    Well Dave, I hear there’s a market for geriatric pr0n so if you contact the ladies concerned you could get rich quick and tell IBM to go jump.

Comments are closed.