[Rhodes22-list] jokes

[Michael Meltzer]

http://www.bumpernuts.com/

 - from Rob Brucato

--
"Spam" is the four-letter word in the Internet age - you probably grit your
teeth and use additional four-letter words when you delete it. But did you
ever stop to think about Hormel's feelings? The company that begat the
time-honored lunchmeat is sick of the fact that its product's name is
synonymous with such a sickening scourge -- and now they're doing something
about it. Hormel is flexing its trademark muscle and taking one company,
Spam Arrest LLC of Seattle, to court over its use of the "Spam" name. Maybe
we should all call junk e-mail something else -- like New Coke, McRib or
something else that's been put in the pantry of history.

--
When they say "there's no such thing as a free lunch," they (whoever "they"
are) must be referring to the repast up for bid on eBay. America's No. 2
billionaire himself (according to "Forbes"), Warren Buffett, will take the
highest bidder and up to seven of that person's friends to lunch next year
in New York. The proceeds go to a charity for the hungry. A trip to the
buffet with Buffett is expected to fetch up to $25,000, but at least there's
a carrot to go with all that lettuce: The highest bidder will be able to
feast on Buffett's investing advice -- which is good, because Buffett is
known as a "hot
dogs and Coke" kind of billionaire.

--
By Kathy Sawyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A01

Astronomers have detected the Methuselah of planets, a world many times
older than any other known, a remarkable survivor formed in a violent,
primordial setting where planets were not thought to exist.

About 800 times more massive than Earth, the planet was born around a
yellow, sun-like star about 13 billion years ago. That is about 9 billion
years earlier than any planet previously detected and a mere billion years
after the big bang that spawned all space and time -- a time, most
astronomers believe, when the universe had yet to create the raw material
needed to make planets, according to researchers who revealed their findings
yesterday.

The discovery could change theories about how easily nature makes planets
from even the skimpiest of raw materials, and about the abundance of
planets -- including some that might harbor life -- thriving unexpectedly in
odd corners of the cosmos, astronomers said.

"What we think we've found is an example of the first generation of planets
formed in the universe," said Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State
University, a member of the observing team. "We think this planet formed
with its star 12.713 billion years ago, when the [Milky Way] galaxy was . .
. just in the process of forming."

For a decade, the identity of this object had been an astronomical mystery.
The observing team solved it by combining the sharp vision of the Hubble
Space Telescope with other instruments and techniques, plus many years of
inventive detective work. The results were announced at a NASA headquarters
news conference yesterday and in today's issue of the journal Science.

Confirmation that the object is a planet "is a stunning revelation," said
Alan P. Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, an expert on the
formation of planetary systems who is not a member of the observing team.
"This means that 13 billion years ago, life could have arisen and then died
out," he said. "This has immense implications."

Andrew Fruchter of the Space Telescope Science Institute, a specialist in
pulsar studies not on the discovery team, said the evidence seems convincing
but noted that it is only one example. "These are very early days in the
study of extrasolar planets, and it probably is too early to rule them in or
out just about anywhere," he said.

Less than a decade ago, astronomers were still struggling to confirm the
first planet detected beyond the family of the sun. Now, the population of
known extrasolar planets exceeds 100. But the latest addition breaks the
mold in several ways, Boss said.

Today, the planet orbits an odd couple made up of a cold, collapsed star
called a white dwarf and an even more bizarre companion known as a pulsar,
which spins on its axis almost 100 times a second. The newfound planet is
the only one known to orbit such a double star system.

This eccentric trio resides at the core of the ancient globular star cluster
M4, about 5,600 light-years from Earth in the direction of the summer
constellation Scorpius. That cluster is visible in binoculars as a fuzzy
white smudge very near the bright star Antares.

The planet's habitat is as noteworthy as its longevity, astronomers said.
The cluster was the site of a furious firestorm of star birth in its early
history, and the young planet must have survived blistering ultraviolet
radiation, the shockwaves of stellar cataclysms known as supernovas and
other mayhem.

Also, in what is possibly most significant for theories of planet formation,
the setting has almost none of what Boss called "feedstock" for making
planets. The globular cluster formed so early in cosmic history that it was
deficient in heavy elements, such as carbon, silicon and oxygen -- the
building blocks of planets such as those in our solar system. All the heavy
elements that fill the modern universe were cooked up over time in the
nuclear furnaces of successive generations of stars.

But 13 billion years ago, the cluster was almost all hydrogen and helium
gas, with only about 1/30th the heavy elements found in our own sun and
planets, Boss said. With this deficit in the stuff of rocks, ice and other
presumed essentials, some astronomers had argued that globular clusters
could not spawn planets, and recent searches had seemed to confirm that.

The new discovery "offers tantalizing evidence that formation processes are
quite robust and efficient at making use of a small amount of heavier
elements," said Sigurdsson, lead author of the Science paper.

It also means that "the traditional way of making gas giant planets just
isn't going to work in this case," Boss said, and that less widely accepted
theories, such as one he has proposed that requires nothing more than gas,
may get a boost.

The planet is too dim to be directly observed, but the team ferreted out its
existence and inferred its tortured history by sifting through generous
clues provided by its weird present-day setting -- especially by the
pulsar's peculiar properties.

In the early 1990s, radio astronomers had timed the pulses the spinning
pulsar emitted -- like beams from a lighthouse -- with exacting precision.
They detected a complex wobble caused by the gravity of two unseen
companions tugging at it.

The first companion was determined to be a white dwarf in a tight, 191-day
orbit around the pulsar. But the other object, orbiting about 2 billion
miles from the central pair, remained a mystery.

It was only when the Sigurdsson team used the Hubble Space Telescope to
distinguish the movement of the white dwarf that it was able to determine
the mass of the third body at 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter. "Several pieces
of the puzzle were missing," Sigurdsson said. "The Hubble data snapped it
all into place."

Once it determined this unlikely trio's characteristics, the team inferred
its adventuresome recent history, which included a plunge through the heart
of the cluster, a hostile encounter there that bounced it back out toward
the cluster's outskirts, and the transformation of the planet's parent star
into the white dwarf.

 - from Jimi Pocius

--
Read before viewing pictures!!

This woman went out to a local computer store to buy a computer that her
family wanted her to get so she can e-mail them. The sales person told her
that they would deliver the computer, set it up and give her some pointers
on using it, if she had any problems later all she had to do was call their
"Technical Support" they would talk her through it over the phone or come
back to her house to find the problem. The sales person asked her if she
wanted to purchase 2 years in house warranty, the woman said yes. A few
months went by, she was getting good sending and receiving and checking the
other web sites with only one call to tech support until one day.  She
called tech support.  SUPPORT: "Hello, technical support how can I help you"
LADY: last night my computer started making a lot of hissing noise at me so
I shut it down, this morning when I turned it on, the computer started
hissing and cracking, then started smoking and a bad smell, then nothing.
SUPPORT: I will have a technician come over first thing this morning, just
leave the computer just like it is so they can find the problem and fix it
or change it out with another computer. Give me your address and phone
number and the technician will be there just as soon as they can. When the
technician got there, the lady showed the technician where the computer was,
said what happen to it, this is what the technician found wrong. Take a look
at the pictures...You won't believe your eyes!!!

 - from John Redfield, as are 11.jpg, 21.jpg, 31.jpg, and 41.jpg

--
BitterrootMtnfire.jpg from John Raso

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