Check Your Theodolites

Nobody likes survey errors

At Mudd this was a Prank

Back in the 90s, even the Harvey Mudd College administrators would present an infamous prank (whereby the survey markers for a new dorm about to commence construction where moved) as though it were all good fun, and in fact that the moved survey markers were better-measured than the correctly-placed originals. In fact, Harvey Mudd College had to negotiate compensation for building the dorm on the property of Pitzer College (several feet over the property line, multiplied by the length of that part of the structure), ultimately resulting in some arrangements about a shared swimming pool.

Well, my desire to visit the Pinball Hall of Fame at their new, huge location near the infamous Las Vegas Sign at the south end of The Strip remains unabated, but it looks like I should probably try to go sooner rather than later.

Pinball Hall of Fame Opens on Strip, Surveyor Gaff Creates Headaches (vitalvegas.com)

It’s a very similar tale, though I doubt any college administrators will be making humorous quips about this one, even though Pinball was no less important a part of life at Harvey Mudd College. Let is hope they get it sorted without spending too many years in court. In the mean time, while I can put off heading down there week-by-week until any drama that comes of this plays out in court cases, I really do need to take a moment to go outside and enjoy this fabulous throw-back resource for some classic recreation with flippers!

Except…

We’re Number One!

Nevada, and more specifically Clark County where Las Vegas is located, is putting up some great covid-19 numbers since relaxing and then completely lifting mitigation measures in mid-May and June 1, respectively. Like clockwork, the wonders of epidemiological mathematics prove themselves again with increasing test positivity, hospitalizations, and even fatalities. This is particularly frustrating, because while some people (especially those of us who remained sequestered indoors for much of 2020 to avoid this whole thing) take mitigation measures as seriously as they can, enough people do not to bring this city and region back toward a bad situation…

Ever since May 17, a couple of days after the initial relaxation of mitigatio measures in Nevada, I have posted frequently to my Twitter with news articles (mostly from the Channel 8 news website, for convenience and also to see a consistent reporting structure on their site) about the progression in the wrong direction.

Vegas Covid Thread on Twitter

If you click on that link you’ll end up at the tail end of the entire thread, as of 4 July (so there might be more tweets added later, you’ll still be in the thread), so you can watch the decent into chaos that is the covid-19 situation making itself a thing again in our dumb city.

The number one issue I have, personally, with this is the fact that Nevada, and Clark County in particular, does not report tourist test numbers (possibly because there is no tourist testing), so that our state and local economies, roaring back to pre-pandemic levels, are bringing people from all over the United States (international tourism is still limited, even though the pandemic is over… hmmmm) to Nevada and specifically Las Vegas, with no specifically-enforced mitigations remaining, and then sending them home, as our locals show up in the rising numbers 45+ days after we took our eyes off of the goal line.

If you’re sensing my frustration, I’m succeeding.

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Artwork Attribution

Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash

How Funny

Robert Mac, never heard of him before, very talented at stringing together call-backs and other fun stuff. Very creative and a full spectrum of funny to hilarious.

Lachlan Patterson is yet another recommended comedian (er, video), and all I have to say is, Pizza Password. Funny stuff…

Rachel Feinstein from 2015… some of the bits in this set can be seen in her later sets so this is a throw-back to earlier times. If I have to be honest, the opener, Anthony DeVito, was not necessarily hitting it out of the park, but that was a different time.

Bonus Rachel Feinstein on Drew Barrymore’s show more recently…

Light Reading

Update from last week, I did give The Scout Mindset (author website) another pass and that was a good idea, I picked up a couple of things I was probably distracted for while I was at the gym. It’s a good book, food for thought (but if I do have a scout mindset, I would be inclined to think that anyway).

I checked out a few Malcolm Gladwell audio books from our local library for my gym and walkabout reading, I’m sure I’ll be more detailed as I select which one to start with this week, and which I end with soon after.

The Tomorrow War

I have not really commented on movies thus far, but I found this movie just interesting enough to do so, but flawed enough not to do so too much. By way of compromise, and since he turned this around so quickly (what, two days after it came out on Amazon?), here’s Ryan George doing what he does best: