The world as I see it

“James, Time to wake up. Your alert criteria have been met!” Great, just enough time to not feel rested and it is time to get up. Isn't that always the way? “Computer, I am awake.” Grabbing the H2IK manual, I flip over to the reactor restart section. The restarting of the fusion reactor is a very power hungry process. It can take all of the power in the cells, though in the tests there was always at least one cell still charged at the end of the cycle. You will need to be in your suit and on internal life support. I put my helmet back on and secure it to the suit collar. Reaching down I turn the full pack on from standby. Tell the computer to switch to backup power. This will require the override code: Charley Zero Nine. Once that is done tell the computer to begin Reset Protocol Alpha One. “Computer. Command. Switch to backup power, Override Code: Charley Zero Nine” I hear the Command and Control circuit breakers click over to the Battery Bus as the computer responds “Done....

I sit and watch the power cells charge and the diagnostic run. So far the computer has asked that Life Support, Navigation and Communication to be switched to the main bus. The Power Cells are charging nicely, even with the increased load. There are only three more to go before the Battery system begins charging. Life support checks out so I can remove my helmet and turn off the suit pack. I decided to swap them out and leave the second one on standby while the original pack is being recharged. That way if I have to take life support off-line I will have a full pack to run on while I'm working. With Navigation on-line, the computer begins an analysis of the star patterns in the sky to figure out where in space the ship actually is located. Communications began a scan of all normal channels looking for any signals right after it was activated. With the computer now doing diagnostics and the power sub-system charging, there is not much to do, so I turn my attention back to the...

The screens clear and a video begins playing in the center display. I see myself on the monitor. “Hello James, this may come as a complete shock to you, but you are no longer in the solar system. You just made the first successful Hyper Shunt Transfer of a human being. In fact, if my, um your calculations are correct, you should be somewhere near or in the Alpha Centauri System. Please be sure to do a full scan of the region and archive it before you leave. It would mean so much to everyone back here.” OK, HSDU, Hyper Shunt Drive Unit. That makes sense. By how did I get to Alpha Centauri? That is over four light years away. That must be one heck of a drive unit. “The Hyper Shunt Project is a faster than light (FTL) drive that forces a wormhole shunt between two locations in space. The initial small scale test using a fixed generator and just pushing the test probes through, while successful in the near instantaneous displacement of the subject, resulted in total computer syst...

Yes, you heard it hear first. I am trying to write a novel this month. I got a late start, but I am going to keep plugging away at it.

And here is my pirate name: My pirate name is: Bloody Harry Flint Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr! Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com. part of the fidius.org network and here is how to talk like a pirate Enjoy!

In the beginning there was DEC BASIC Plus and PASCAL . From that we learned FORTRAN-77 , COBOL , Assembler , APL , PL-1 , RPG and JCL from the land of IBM. DOS Batch files, Unix Shells, sed and awk abound through the land. Esoterica ensues with Forth and Lisp . Lo, the introduction to the 6502 microprocessor and Assembler with all its variations by processor 6800 , 68000 , 8008 , 8080 Z-80 , 8086 , 80186 , 80286 , 80386 , 80486 and higher. Hitachi , ARM and PIC round out the bunch. Then came the light of C , which beget C++ . Windows programming started and tools abounded Delphi , Visual Basic , Visual C/C++ and the Sun's own JAVA . Databases are everywhere D-BASE , Datatrive , SQL in all its glories and incantations( Informix , Oracle , SQL Server , XDB , MySQL and PostgreSQL ) The web grows and with it HTML , JavaScript , XML, CSS , PHP , perl and ASP . Thus is my tale of languages totaling 42 at first glance. Maybe more or less depending on the variations you cons...

'> You scored as Visual/Spatial . You probably feel at home with the visual arts, maps, charts, and diagrams. You tend to think in images and pictures. You learn best by looking at pictures and slides, watching videos or movies, and visualizing. People like you include sculptors, painters, surgeons and engineers. Verbal/Linguistic 71% Visual/Spatial 71% Logical/Mathematical 61% Intrapersonal 57% Bodily/Kinesthetic 50% Musical/Rhythmic 39% Interpersonal 36% The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences created with QuizFarm.com