Month: November 2018

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Did you know…

The WorldSpaceFlight site covers a lot of territory. There are shortcut ways of reaching particular sets of pages.

Americainspace.com redirects to the America in Space pages.
Russiainspace.com redirects to the Russia in Space pages.
Chinainspace.com redirects to the China in Space pages.
Canadainspace.com redirects to the Canada in Space pages.
Europeinspace.com redirects to the Europe in Space pages.
Japaninspace.com redirects to the Japan in Space pages.
And astronauts-n-cosmonauts.com redirects to the astronaut and cosmonaut Bio pages.

Other sets of pages within WorldSpaceFlight aren’t so lucky. But the big seven sets which are may save you a little bit of typing.

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Maintenance releases for Sphider

Sphider release 2.0.1 has some code cleanup and a jquery update.

PDO Sphider, Sphider for PostgreSQL, and Sphider for SQLite are at release 2.0.2. While these too have some code cleanup and jquery update, they are mainly to correct a few problems introduced by release 2.0.1!

No change to the functionality is involved in these releases. They are mainly to clean up a few messy items, although the PDO versions 2.0.1 did correct some problems with database error reporting. Those changes are included in 2.0.2.

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Boiled Shrimp

When I was a young man, I discovered shrimp… specifically, fried shrimp. Whenever we went to a restaurant, if fried shrimp was on the menu, I ordered it.

After I had left home and was on my own, fried shrimp was always one of my favorite options. But then one day, sitting at the bar in Al’s Bar in a town in Nebraska, I noticed a sign above the bar: “Plate of 12 boiled shrimp, $1”. Well, I was hungry and I did like fried shrimp, so I figure shrimp is shrimp and ordered a plate.

As I am sitting there, watching TV, sipping my beer, and eating my boiled shrimp, I notice a stranger to my left sort of watching me. I say nothing and continue watching TV, sipping beer, and eating boiled shrimp.

Finally the stranger to my left speaks: “Excuse me. Do you ALWAYS eat your shrimp with the shells on?”
I reply: “Yes. Yes I do. Why?”
Stranger: “Well, it’s just that I never saw anybody do that before. They always shell them first.”
Me: “I like the crunch!”

I guess I decided that day, after finishing the plate of shrimp I had in front of me, that I just maybe might try shelling them in the future. Since that time, whenever I have eaten boiled shrimp, I have shelled them first… provided there is no sign of that same stranger nearby.

Hey! At least I have ALWAYS shelled my hard boiled eggs before eating them!