Let's Meet Up on March 11th at 2:30am

From Tuesday's post.

Have you ever reflected back upon something you just completed only to discover some horrific mistake you made but had previously overlooked?  Say, for example, you are a heart surgeon.  As you are stitching the patient up after a lengthy procedure, you replay the operation in your head.  Just as you are knotting the last suture, you realize that you left a sponge in the patient's chest cavity.

Yesterday afternoon there was another spam attack on President Obama's Google+ page.  I thought back to the previous blog entry I wrote on the subject ... and it hit me.  I had written about just such an event and claimed it occurred at 4:00pm EST on Monday.  This cyber attack did not happen at four o'clock Eastern Standard Time; it happened at four o'clock Eastern Daylight Time!  4:00pm EST did not exist on Monday.  It existed the previous Monday, but not this past Monday.  How could I forget Daylight Saving Time?  How could such a surgical sponge be left to fester in my blog post?  (Too hyperbolic?)

Daylight Saving Time is a creepy concept to me.  Tonight, stay up to 1:59am, be a rebel.  I promise you that a minute later will be 2:00am, and the minute following that will be 2:01am.  Check for yourself, if you don't believe me.  This past Sunday, however, that did not happen.  Time went from 1:59am to 3:01am in a span of just two, short minutes.  What happened in between?  Was it 2:00am and 3:00am simultaneously?  Yes!  It's the Schrodinger's Cat of chronology.  Where did the time from 2:00am to 2:59am go?  Was there a rift in the space-time continuum?  Does the arbitrary shift from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time contradict everything we learned in physics?

I understand the concept behind Daylight Saving Time.  Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant from Stuff You Should Know did an excellent podcast explaining the history and rationale behind saving daylight.  Long story short, it seemed wasteful for people to be asleep while the sun was up only to have the sun set early in the evening.  The remedy, push the clocks ahead so that our daily schedules better match the solar schedule.  I don't understand, though, why we fall back?  Why not just save daylight all of the time?  Wouldn't it be nice to get off work and still have a little sunlight left on a December evening?  Are decreased productivity at work and the increased number of deaths caused by sleep confused drivers necessary every time we switch our clocks?

If you are a resident of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands, I apologize for wasting your time.  You have no idea what Daylight Saving Time is, and you have little need.  If you are a resident of Arizona, you do not observe Daylight Saving Time either.  I can only assume that your legislators are too concerned with upholding the rights of all of your fellow citizens to be bothered with such trivial issues.  Instead, you keep your clocks the same and switch what timezone your state belongs to twice a year.  That's much less confusing for the rest of us.  How will our boarder protecting militia members know when to meet up with your boarder protecting militia members?

My favorite part about Daylight Saving in Arizona ... the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona does observe Daylight Saving Time.

Was there a Greek God of Bird Droppings?

Snow tires are safe and secure.

As promised on Monday, I took the plunge.  I declared winter to be officially over, and took off the snow tires.  I was (and still am) worried convinced that this was a rash and premature act ... a simple over-exuberance compelled by a spate of delightful weather.  (I have not used some of those words in a while and felt the need to throw them in.)  I have been encouraged to see that a number of individuals I respect have made similar pronouncements.

Chris Hall (of ChallTech fame) has declared the beginning of the Summer of 2012 from the campus of Lehigh University (I'm sure your boys will do just fine against Duke.)

Khaliq Gant (of Social Blendr fame) has not stored the snow tires, but has taken equally daring measures. He also seems to possess a talking wardrobe.

Finally, the ghost tweeter for Walt Frazier (of New York Knickerbocker fame, Just For Men pitchman, and star of a title role in this post) echoed Khaliq's sentiments just a few hours later.

Emboldened by such a noble company of men, I have decided to take my taunting of Mother Nature a step further.  I got my car washed today.  Step at me, Horae!

With everybody filling out their NCAA brackets and the US economy looking at an estimated loss of $192 million in productivity in the coming weeks, I offer two wagers.

First, when do you think the next measurable amount of snow accumulation will occur?  I'm placing the Over/Under at April 10th of this year.

Second, how long do you think it will take for a bird to crap on my newly cleaned windshield?

Ohh, Shiny!

Over/Under for this is four hours.

Happy Fun Times ... In Mandarin!

The Chinese are crazy for Women's College Hoops.

So this is for the two people on Google+.  Chinese citizens have been spamming President Obama's Google+ account for the last couple of days.  Here's how it works.  Google+ allows a maximum of 500 comments to be made on any one post.  Whenever the White House publishes something to +Barack Obama, the comments get flooded with Mandarin.  It generally takes just a few hours to reach the 500 comment maximum, at which point anybody else that would like to add their thoughts is shut out.

It's amazing to watch.  I was online today at 4:00pm EST EDT when pictures of a dinner with Barak and Michelle Obama were posted.  This was 4:00am in Beijing, and the floodgates opened.  If you want to to view a full example, check this one out.

It was posted yesterday at 3:37pm.  There were a handful of comments, mostly anticipating the onslaught that was about to happen.  Then at 4:03, it began.  You can see from the image below that the comments come in serious waves.

These are all public posts, so I don't feel the need to cover up the user names of anybody here.

It seems that a number are Chinese nationals using this forum as a virtual occupy movement.  By repressing the ability for Americans to comment on President Obama's actions, they are illustrating what it is like to live under the thumb of their government.  Perhaps people in China think that Americans actually use Google+, care about what the President has to say, and will be devastated if they cannot post their opinions online.

The rest of the comments fall into two other categories.  The majority seem to be Chinese kids playing a game.  It looks like they are trying to see who can post the 500th comment.  It's kind of like making a stopwatch stop at exactly 1.00 seconds.  The other comments come from Americans that are irked about having this public forum so brutally spammed. They repeatedly post comments asking people to stop (thus ticking the watch closer to 500), or ask that the comments be flagged as inappropriate (so the overlords at Google can supposedly block those Chinese accounts).

I like these requests the best.  American citizens are asking that a public protest against an overbearing government be squashed so that Americans can post comments about President Obama's dinner pictures and his picks for the NCAA Women's basketball tournament.  Granted, this is not a Woolworth's lunch counter we are talking about, but the irony is a little thick.

So I say... let's play along.  First, join Google+.  Next, follow +Barack Obama.  (This is not a liberal / conservative thing.  It's a social media game, like FarmVille.  The only people you annoy are uptight Americans, instead of your friends.)  Now wait for a post from the White House and comment away.  Let me know if you hit number 500.

This game is also more fun if you comment in Mandarin.  I use Google Translate and then copy and paste.

Now that you are on Google+, you can follow me directly, or get updates from this blog.  Tricked you!