Stupid Stupid Seahawks

A very long time ago, the stranger ran a series of "stupid stupid" things. Today I feel that about the seahawks. It is beautifully sunny outside, i want to kill the blackberries - but I have to watch the ospreys kick the asses of the industrialists. And i will enjoy it.

Counting on all my fingers and toes

Currently, the Defense Department says it is spending about $4.5 billion a month on the conflict in Iraq, or about $100,000 per minute.
That is MIND BOGGLING to me. One hundred thousand dollars per MINUTE. Think about it. that's $1666.67 per second. In every second of every day, the government could fly me round trip to New Zealand. Every ten seconds - it could pay for a Civic Hybrid. Every minute - a house, or a college education.
I know those are maybe not universal examples, but - one second. It takes about one second to type "one second" - is that worth $1667 dollars to anyone out there?

In other "numbers so stupifyingly large they make my brain want to explode" news - I was doing some research today, and came upon this factoid:
A 16-bit Nova from Data General could be had for as little as $8,000 in 1969.
that works out to $500 PER BIT, in 1969 dollars.* So - in 1969 dollars, my 500 gig** computer would have been worth $2,147,483,648,000,000. 2 QUADRILLION DOLLARS. ***

So - I propose a nice hot shower to wash all those numbers out of my head. Between the government and computers, I feel like an abacus-holding pauper named Chad.****

*The equivalent in 2005 dollars would be roughly $2500 per bit.
**500 GB = 4,294,967,296,000 bits.
***In 2005 dollars, the amount is staggeringly fucking gigantic - $ 5,368,709,120,000,000,000 - 5.5Quintillion dollars.
****No offense intended to anyone named Chad. It has always seemed to me one of those cross-culturally silly words, the way it thuds out of your mouth.