Nick

Color Effect

2011-05-20T15:55:00.001-05:00

My old friend Johnny shared this link on his Facebook: really old color photos.

I was struck by how humanizing the color was; these people felt closer than they ever had before.

Here's some black and white photos. Click them to see the color version. Clearly, I have no rights to these.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

2010-02-03T11:08:00.001-06:00

I just caught the end of 2001's A.I. Artificial Intelligence on TV. I had completely forgotten about it.

With last night's LOST premiere on my mind, the AI memory that jumped back so strongly was the resentment I had of people who thought the slender ones were aliens.

move over Hugh, Michael's the new hair in town

2010-02-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

Masculine readers, this post isn't for you. Avert your browsers.

Also, too-cool-for-sci-fi readers, this post isn't for you, either. Avert your wasted browsers.

My favorite Stargate character is Daniel Jackson. When we started watching 'Gate, I was in the middle of growing out my hair, and Daniel and I had some unfortunate similarities.

I could probably mimic that hair pretty well, with some effort. Even less fortunately, however, the resemblance is actually more prominent with Daniel Jackson from the Stargate movie.

So, I'm leaning toward ✂the cut✂. I can still stick with DJ, however. I like some of his updated cuts.

(I promise not to ever make these last two faces. I've tried with some friends tonight, and can't even do it on purpose.)

And, I mean, if Daniel cuts his hair, then so can I! Right? I'll probably end up with the buzz again.

OH Equip it! I mean... Put it on.

2010-01-29T22:36:00.002-06:00

Oh, Pete.

frozen bananas are handy, with one caveat

2010-01-25T12:21:00.000-06:00

I've been making Alton's delicious smoothie with some regularity in the mornings. I've learned some things.

Frozen fruit is awesome for this. However, peel your bananas before freezing them. Obvious in retrospect – sure, but now I know exactly how difficult it is to peel a frozen banana. Difficult.
It's a bit much for a single serving. I'm gonna chop the ingredients in twain.
Frozen fruit deserves the "Ice Crush" button; particularly strawberries. Blenders are whiners.
It's annoying to clean the blender everyday. Any ideas? A rinse isn't so hard, but all the sugar in there scares me.

The scale I purchased is en route, but I think I've lost a few pounds since focusing on eating both better and less and also starting the EA Sports Six Week Challenge on the Wii. Booyah.

and now I'm asking for it

2010-01-20T11:15:00.000-06:00

Obviously, this is all up for debate. Matt asked for my opinion. This is what I shared. Straighten me out!

Honest opinion: we should not provide "death care" or "slob care". That would change everything. Bonus opinion: focus on and reward people for wellness.

I attended a health care forum hosted by Bob Dole at the Dole Institute. It brought people from various parts of the health care industry (except insurance – that guy didn't show up, and apparently they rarely do). All I remember is that somebody – some expert – quoted a stat that something like 80% of health care costs for a patient's last stay (or maybe all stays?) comes in the last 3 weeks. That's death care, and I don't want to put my buck behind it.

If you don't take reasonable measures to be well, then I don't want to pay for your care. I don't know what those measures need to be, but they should probably be few and straight-forward. "Vegetables" comes to mind. "Corn syrup" comes to mind. Most importantly, they need to be auditable; it should be inexpensive and objective to determine if the guidelines have been met. Too many people develop chronic illness from their lifestyle and then that raises my costs. That's slob care, and I'm ag'in' it.

The government should either compete with, strictly regulate, or obsolete insurance companies. My suggestions above apply in the first two options. I don't know how to obsolete it.

Insurance companies manage risk by randomly pooling its subscribers to disperse costs. That's the origin of employer-provided care; the employer is an easy and (usually) effective way to randomly pool people. I think that model is over-simplified. Insurance costs should be hierarchical based on how healthy I am, right now (yearly re-appraisal?), according to my doctor. This appraisal should not include my medical history – just my current health and the results of that audit I mentioned above.

Primary care physicians should be paid more than specialists. Sure, specialists paid more for their education and are favored by supply-and-demand and such, but this is mucking up the system. It's upside down: specialists have the least contribution to a society's health, and yet they are rewarded the most. GPs are the front-line and need to be treated as such. Their clients-per-day are like students in a classroom and need to be minimized so they can receive the attention and advice needed for wellness.

Basically: reward people for a healthy lifestyle, punish them for an unhealthy lifestyle – deal with it libertarians, if you want insurance. Change the payment/appreciation of GPs versus specialists to reflect that emphasis on wellness. Make a regular check-up more viable and less expensive. Most radically: don't spend tons of money treating dying people or people with extremely rare diseases – it's just not as useful for the society, nor fair to the other people in that risk pool.

Also, reform in the insurance and medical services industries will have non-trivial consequences for any intimately related industries, including pharmaceuticals. Someone needs to research drugs, but that business-model is currently as messed up as the RIAA – it's all about intellectual property, baby.

Good Foods

2010-01-15T09:32:00.000-06:00

I made this for dinner again last night. It's been delicious both times. I made it with turkey, which apparently weighs more? 1.5 lbs turkey is too much turkey. I also use frozen vegetables, since peas/corn/carrots come prepped that way. Big time saver. LOTS of glorious leftovers since I quadrupled the recipe. It's also delicious with the vegetarian protein crumbles. Worchestershire sauce is invincible.

And since my bananas finally ripened, I made Alton's smoothie this morning! Also delicious. I gotta recommend that whole episode.

Avatar, amendment 1

2009-12-22T11:48:00.000-06:00

I forgot two things.

Another flaw with Avatar: Ana Lucia has still not been punched in the face. Help me, Season 6. You're my only hope.

Also, Avatar shares a lot of themes with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Loved that one. Hannah does, too.

I'll read the rest of the poem tomorrow

2009-12-21T23:21:00.000-06:00

I caught this quote in a film once.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, LITTLE GIDDING

I really like it. I find it very compelling. I don't want to leave my family – I don't want to go exploring – I don't need new friends when I've got such good ones in my daily life already. (I suppose I'm taking an optimistic viewpoint on that last line, but that's well within my liberty.)

The quote seems relevant in light of college graduation. "Where to?"

I don't want anyone to leave. And I want everyone to come back.

holy cow

2009-12-21T23:09:00.002-06:00

1677 songs added to my iTunes library in 2009! Wonder how much that cost.

Avatar

2009-12-21T23:00:00.000-06:00

Spoiler warning.

It is a great movie. It noticeably lacked only two things:

An original plot. Reviews I read before watching made this same critique. The avatar thing is a nice speculative fiction twist (and a bit over-played in the title, I think), but doesn't sway the story too considerably from Pocahontas/Dances with Wolves/The Last Samurai: efficient-killing, greedy invaders lend wayward hero to "savages", who turn out to be noble and inspire the hero to switch sides.
Here's the catch: I love this plot. Add in the thoughtful and inter-woven support from the Na'vi culture and Pandoran ecology for the audience's inflamed environmentalism, and Cameron has sharpened-up a very old and very proven story.
Character development. The wittiest critique I read on Rotten Tomatoes was about how the movie looks great in 3D but the characters themselves are trapped in 1D. Nobody really changes.
The closest I'd say was the capitalist Parker; his resentment for his charge and his thin attempts at self-deception become more evident as the movie proceeds. I like that veneer of sympathy the movie allows him. Clearly, Jake changes, but this is a plot element more than character development. Moreover, the lack of information about his past character (=spunky?) leaves us with no trajectory upon which to witness character development.

I'll say it again. It is a great movie. But not a film. I'd say the two missing pieces above are pretty much pillars of film, but no more than pieces of a movie.

Basically: amidst the simple plot, Cameron effortlessly blends dragon-riders and mecha in the same movie. I can dig that. Layer on the wonderment of being a Na'vi, the invitation for redemption for our greedy ways (demonstrated by Dr. Augustine/Jake connecting with Eywa), the drop-dead gorgeous Pandoran environment, and the most seamless computer animation ever, and you have no excuse to miss this one.

whelp

2009-12-19T20:00:00.002-06:00

Panic Room was fun, but the ending proper was a bit unfulfilling.

disappointment!

2009-12-18T18:23:00.005-06:00

Sadly, I'm not the first to see this uncanny resemblance.

it was only a matter of time

2009-12-18T10:02:00.000-06:00

My thumb became painful after so much programming. A little searching indicates it was a "sprain". The app I use most had me moving my left thumb over to the option key very regularly. It started to cramp up and hurt when I did so.

I saw Phil yesterday and that reminded me that some people change the caps lock key to be other things, since caps lock is so worthless. OS X actually supports this directly in the Keyboard preference pane^†, so now my caps lock key is just another option key. My thumb feels better already.

It feels hopeful.

† You can change other "modifier" keys too: control, option, and command.

a meal

2009-12-15T13:33:00.000-06:00

I'm looking at recipes to cook tonight for community dinner, and I think a fun one would be pairing this vegetable hash with one (both!?) of these two breakfast hashes. Mmmm delicious and cryptographic to boot.

books (for me) to read

2009-12-14T14:25:00.000-06:00

RT @duke_sam: Interesting top 20 Sci-Fi books of the decade list: http://is.gd/5n72y

My picks from that list:

Acacia: The War with the Mein
Glasshouse
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Look to Windward
The Mount (maybe)
Perdido Street Station
Rainbows End
Stories of Your Life And Others

up all night

2009-12-13T05:38:00.000-06:00

Up all night doing no good. I just scraped ABC's site for all of its Lost episode recaps and gathered them into one page for easy access. I'm hosting it on my website, but it's protected because I don't know how mean they will be.

If you want access, let me know. I'm going to read it all, seasons 1-5, before 6 starts on 2 February because I don't remember so much!

how is this possible?

2009-12-11T19:41:00.000-06:00

@akrito - You're on. Via Phil, http://bit.ly/5EIevy

glory hallelujah computer-style

2009-12-11T18:53:00.000-06:00

So GHC and Snow Leopard do not get along well. That links to an ugly looking page, and I can't really find a nice summary anywhere.

Though I had followed the ragtag instructions and got GHC working as far as I could tell, I was having trouble getting Apache + FastCGI + GHC to work for a web application I had made on my laptop (OS X 10.5). I couldn't really find any error issues and other parts of the web site were working fine, so I just figured the bit mismatch was causing the problem, since IPC can be iffy in the first place. I had given up for a while.

But, I recently installed mod_python and wrote some home-grown python to filter my Google Reader shared items and this blog for my Twitter account (a little more sophisticated than twitterfeed, especially since it is triggered via URL). This put me back in the mood to get Haskell working, since I much prefer it to Python given the choice. I think what it turned out to be was me not noticing that GHC didn't actually rebuild the Haskell executable since I had only changed GHC-system files and not the actual source. Works now. Joy.

Long story short (too late): my online Quoridor program works now, so two people can play over the Internets. En garde! It's password protected because I don't understand the licensing issues and Family Games, Inc. hasn't responded to my inquiry. If you want to try it, let me know.

no bookmark manager for Mac Chrome beta

2009-12-10T00:40:00.000-06:00

Manage your Mac Chrome bookmarks at ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Bookmarks. Beta, indeed.

I could sing

2009-12-09T10:46:00.000-06:00

Be warned: some of the linked Lost theories are very difficult to look past and I wouldn't be surprised if they eclipsed your own. Don't blame me.

Lindsey shared this, and it's freakin' brilliant! I hope the Lost cabal has pre-manipulated all the Wikipedia pages it references, though – that'd be masterful.

Note that Charlie's never mentioned, which is good because he's dumb.

I really dig the theme (that I first saw in Gaiman's American Gods) that the atrophy of pagan faiths has a "physical" consequence for the deities themselves.

mini labor

2009-12-08T18:16:00.000-06:00

Finally put my Mac mini to work as an RSS pre-processor for Twitterfeed, for both my blog and my Google Reader shared items.

get my whiff?

2009-12-08T10:20:00.000-06:00

I just realized that my recent sinus infection was just my nose's way of wishing me a Merry Christmas, chromatically.

west coast slang

2009-12-08T10:19:00.001-06:00

ESPN taught me that the west coast offense calls three parallel slants "the lion" and a slant with a drag route "the dragon". Where can I learn more? I like NFL player jargon.

sweet bumper sticker

2009-12-07T15:30:00.001-06:00

http://bit.ly/5cF4FD Via Shannon. I'm gonna order a few. Anybody want one?

ship this

2009-12-07T12:45:00.000-06:00

Good: SNL UPS #1 & #2

what does this mean?

2009-12-05T17:15:00.002-06:00

I clicked the "Next Blog" link on my Blogger Dashboard today for the first time. Then I clicked it a lot. They were all about pets, mostly dogs, but two bunny raisers showed-up in a row once. What?

about two years now

2009-12-05T15:23:00.000-06:00

I've published this blog for about two years now. There's no best-of or any sort of recap – beyond laughing at the claims of my ridiculous first post, that is.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you've gotten something from reading it. I've enjoyed writing it from the silly little shares to the diary-esque or even manifesto posts.

I've changed the name a couple of times, from "Ignorance is OK!" to "Rumblin' Bumblin' Stumblin'" and now to "Myopic and Moderate" (which has no zing and so will probably change soon). Each of those was meant to reflect my current philosophical mood. In that way, I suppose, this blog has largely served to record some trace of my (re)construction of a personal ethic.

I'm sick of thinking about that stuff: I've deconstructed, but the reconstruction isn't getting anywhere. This is why my posts have been a lot less thinky recently.

On that note, it is a fitting time to mention (again) that I've opened a Facebook account and – just now – a twitter account. I've set it up so that both of those just feed out this blog; don't expect anything beyond that (though I might be using some twitter syntax). I'm just connecting to my friends in whichever way they've invited me to do so. No more social networking elitism.

reverse Internet

2009-12-01T21:30:00.000-06:00

Type a few letters into Google's search box, but don't hit Enter. See what it suggests. I just had lots of fun exploring "when should" on Google. It's all about beefy pregnant patriots.

surrender

2009-11-30T17:13:00.002-06:00

Some surrender quotes.

I have a Facebook account. It's ultra secret and invisible. Point me to your profile if you'd like to be my friend.

I've already used it to make a connection I couldn't otherwise manage for 5 years (I had tried letters, Googling, and email). The power of its social inter-connectivity is undeniable. My grumblings had become rote. And the mass of friends' events I've not known about because I wasn't on Facebook is no one's fault but mine. So many friends are there, and I can follow responsibly.

What does responsibly mean? I only check Facebook when I'm on the shitter. I can still be subversive!

canine champloo

2009-11-28T19:58:00.000-06:00

I'm a few episodes from the end of Samurai Champloo, and I just realized that Honey is Jin and Jupiter is Mugen.

the secure, sleepy screen saver

2009-11-27T14:18:00.001-06:00

Scrounging a lot of forums, I came up with a solution for an OS X screen saver that serves a lot of my needs. If you follow these instructions, you will ...

have a screen saver that sleeps the display instead of drawing pretty pictures on it.
be prompted for your password when you disturb the screen saver.
be able to immediately start your screen saver via your keyboard if you want to safely walk away from your computer.
be able to temporarily disable your screen saver while watching a movie etc.

The sleepy screen saver

I've always wanted my screen saver to just put the display to sleep, but that's not been an OS X option out of the box.

This hint comment offers some C code for sleeping the display immediately, which it seems is the only way to do it from the command line! There's the CTRL-SHIFT-Eject keystroke, but AppleScript cannot emulate the Eject keystroke. You can compile that code (change the function name to main) with

gcc -framework CoreFoundation -framework IOKit

if you've installed the XCode tools.

Now you have an executable that just sleeps the display.

Why use a screen saver at all?

A fine question. I could just set my display to sleep before my screen saver starts. There's a reason.

Phil has got me thinking about security recently, so I want my laptop to prompt for a password when someone wakes the display from sleep/disturbs the screen saver. This is easy to setup for the screen saver, but not so much for waking display. The best alternative I can find is SleepWatcher, but that project seems a little too fragile for me to depend on it. It would let me execute a script when the display wakes, but I also don't want to write a script that emulates the password prompt.

So I'm using a screen saver because I want the password prompt aspect.

How to make the application a screen saver

There are tutorials for making screen savers, and XCode even has a project for them (under Standard Apple Plug-ins), but I don't know Objective-C and there's more function stubs to fill out than I'd like. So I'm going to cheat and use ScriptSaver instead. It only runs AppleScripts, so we use a simple little script to invoke our executable according to this note. I put my executable in /usr/local/bin and made a /usr/local/AppleScripts directory for my script. Check your PATHs and such.

Final touches

I made sure, in the Security preference pane, that a password is required to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver.
I use Quicksilver, because I prefer the keyboard to the mouse. OS X lets you use a Hot Corner for invoking the screen saver, but that's hard to activate with the keyboard... so I added /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app to Quicksilver's catalog. That way I can invoke the screen saver just like any other program. (Phil pointed me to this hint; if you don't want to install Quicksilver.)
Temporarily disabling the screen saver for movies and such is comparable to disabling sleep, but it's a bit more complicated (see HippoMan's post at 12-31-2008, 08:26 PM for the solution – also, applaud him for politely putting up with a lot of stupid responses in that thread).

our college athletes are so respectable

2009-11-23T10:54:00.000-06:00

Check out the picture on this article. It's everything I could ever want KSU to be known for.

(begrudgingly) resolved

2009-11-22T22:33:00.001-06:00

I took care of the freezing fullscreen issue by downgrading to Flash Player 9, which was a considerable bother to find online. I played some of Hulu's HD content, and it was gorgeous and not choppy. That's the first time I've rendered HD content – quite a relief that it works.

I don't know the difference between Flash Player 9 and 10. The HD content plays fine, so I don't think I have a reason to care. (It still bothers me on principle!)

I also took care of the fact that my computer goes to sleep when watching videos.

#!/bin/sh
trap 'pmset force -c sleep 90' 1 2 3 14 15
pmset force -c sleep 0
sleep 7200
pmset force -c sleep 90

I put a link to this file on my desktop. I just need to double-click it (thanks to its .command suffix) to disable the inactivity-based-sleep functionality for 2 hours. Break it down:

The trap means that if the script gets prematurely interrupted, it re-enables the sleeping.
The pmset bits disable and re-enable the sleeping behavior.
It re-enables automatic-sleepage (... eww) after a 7200s=2h delay via sleep.

wierd and unwelcome

2009-11-21T15:11:00.001-06:00

This Adobe bug is quite annoying. Does anyone else have this happen? If I use fullscreen mode on Flash player (YouTube or Hulu, e.g.) then the video freezes while everything else (like audio) continues. There's lots of forum posts out there where people discuss this, but the only fix is to disable hardware acceleration. That's a no-go for my meager Mini.

I use OS X's Screen Sharing to control the Mini from my laptop. When the video locks up, I can either connect via Screen Sharing or disconnect in order to fix it. This is a weird band-aid, but Screen Sharing is obviously related to video. It's annoying to do it every 5 minutes or so and to keep my laptop in my lap to watch video.

Some page I saw said it only happens when watching 480p content. And, for me, it only started happening when I started using 1080i. It didn't happen when I was using 720p.

This alternative suggestion did not work for me, which was sad. Took a while though, so my hopes got lifted and then squashed.

weird but welcome

2009-11-20T00:42:00.000-06:00

So my $450 craigslist Mac Mini was choppy when it was feeding 1080i video (such as 30 Rock on Hulu) to my $150 craigslist HDTV. I wasn't happy.

But, today, it worked.^† Other than this Mac OS X update, I don't think anything else changed.

Yay? Yay...? Yay.

† I tried it again when playing around to try to figure out why the screen bounces when I set the mini to output 720p. Still don't know what's going on with that one.

scientists are hot

2009-11-12T22:23:00.000-06:00

Exercise is Goooood

2009-11-11T23:01:00.000-06:00

Tyler and I have created the habit of taking Jupiter and Honey to the Haskell Indian Nations University nature preserve in the mornings on a "double dog walk." We let them both off lead. Jupiter gets worn out sprinting about and chasing the other dogs we meet and then becomes a couch potato for the rest of the day. Honey actually plays (just a bit) with Jupiter. It truly warmed my heart the first time I saw it – she's dog-aggressive and has never played with a dog before. It was awesome.

I just took Jupiter to puppy class for the first time since we started doing this daily (past week or so). He was his normal overly-excitable self at first, but about half way through he got really attentive and obedient. We actually got to show off a bit with some happenstance long distance obedience – there was literally oooing and ahhing. He's quite obedient at home without major distractions (we practice nothing's-for-free for feeding twice a day) and that finally came through at class tonight. It was awesome.

Defying Gravity

2009-11-06T18:02:00.002-06:00

Keith and Tyler and I just watched the last episode of Defying Gravity. I can't believe this show is canceled. That is uncool.

Well I was completely anti-social today

2009-11-05T22:31:00.002-06:00

http://nicolas.is-a-geek.org/chat.html

You have to tell your friend via some other means what room you're in, once you start one.

I've used it a bit in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. And on my phone – which is just plain weird.

In case you're wondering, it uses Apache 2.2 running on Leopard, with a multi-threaded Haskell program running server-side in FastCGI mode – and of course, the infamous XMLHttpRequest.

Call me a minimalist and then re-design the interface for me.

my website and JavaScript stuff

2009-11-05T14:27:00.001-06:00

I was setting-up an old desktop to be a server, but it made a loud popping noise when I turned it on. Hence – for now – I'm using my laptop to serve my website. Which is a horrible idea. But it's what I've got.

http://nicolas.is-a-geek.org

Currently the front-page is one of those cool kid photos. Primarily because I'm obsessed with my hair as it's never been this long before.

A little less vanity: I dug into asynchrony in JavaScript for a pet project I've been working on, so I wrote up a summary of my autodidactic^† endeavor.

Remember, unless you catch me with my laptop on at home, my website won't be loading for you.

† Who uses that word?

twords... palm to the face

2009-11-02T17:49:00.000-06:00

My inner pubescence will never die: "Parker, let's just see what they're up to and keep each other aboob of tonight's activities."

KA CHING

And Parker wanted me to share Nickchalant. I'll leave it to him to explain that one – apparently I have "a way". I hope it's akin to a pirate smile.

JavaScript doesn't do dos

2009-11-01T08:35:00.003-06:00

Well, JavaScript on Firefox does dos. You can name a variable do, even though it's a language keyword. Safari and Chrome barf on that.

I don't like languages that don't admit keyword variable names. It's called scoping, people – look it up. Also, context-sensitive parsing: "Woo woo! All aboard." A loop construct doesn't follow a period. And dynamic LHSes never hurt anyone, especially in a late-binding language. Arg.

Quoridor

2009-10-31T12:02:00.004-05:00

If you like thoughtful board games, we've always had a good time at my house with Quoridor.

Our most recent Quoridor-phase got me in the mood enough to make this interactive assistant. At the moment, it's just a virtual board that allows exactly the same moves that the physical board does. However, it helps you track all of your moves and provides some rich navigation such as undo and redoing (with branching and tagging (kind of like git)).

Try it out!

(I've tested it on Firefox 3.5.4 and Safari 4.0.3 on OS X 10.5.8 and my friend says we're golden on Google Chrome 3.0.19.27 on Vista. Please let me know about other platforms.)

Free albums

2009-10-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

The free songs link was removed, but check out are all the free MP3 albums on Amazon.com.

Chicago Falcon by The Budos Band

2009-10-22T12:20:00.000-05:00

Chicago Falcon by The Budos Band just came up in my iTunes and knocked me over (which is impressive, as I'm reclined on my couch). So, I wanted to share &ndash and who better to share with than you?!

I think I'll do this often, because of how many free samplers I tend to download from Amazon.com. (They used to have a page showing all free songs, but that URL is dead now... big surprise.) So... any suggestions regarding a better way to do this sharing or an online place to catalog the list?

clever girl

2009-10-15T11:26:00.000-05:00

Unexpected Netflix shipping of My Little Pony and Showgirls implies that someone is messing with the queue I'm using. Conveniently, I don't pay for it.

So I solved the problem by bumping the plan to send me more DVDs. Riposte! We can discuss extra expenses later.

PFFFT

2009-10-09T18:18:00.000-05:00

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m19Y7PIMVJQDEM

Oh yeah. Right. Sure. One "sshhtt" is all it took. Definitely. Right.

even worse

2009-10-09T15:15:00.001-05:00

http://in.solit.us/archives/download/168591

I recorded him in the crate this time, with his rawhide bone, water, and about eight hidden treats.

This weighs so heavily on me. I talked to Perry about it and he so graciously told me that as long as I remain as productive as I've been I can come in less. I'm planning on spending at least Tuesdays and Thursdays working at home and working on increasing the amount of time I can leave the room without him flippin' it. So hopefully we're on the mend.

Also, my new puppy class teacher suggested freezing some of his canned food (he usually just eats kibble) in a Kong, which is the most interest he's ever shown in a Kong. This has kept him occupied during my very brief absences.

I forgot to post my thoughts on Terminator Salvation...

2009-10-09T14:07:00.000-05:00

We need to make money - Christian Bale
We need a talented and beautiful woman - Bryce Dallas Howard
We need to cover our demographics - Common
We need a creepy lady: Stevie Nicks but brunette and coherent - Helena Bonham Carter
Who threw this dart? - Sam Worthington
I know I owe you $20, but I don't have any cash on me - Michael Ironside
What's this second dart doing here? - Moon Bloodgood

two more factoids

2009-10-09T14:04:00.000-05:00

I had a thing for Gadget.

And Beaker is – err – was my favorite muppet.

Noticing a theme?

a quieter Honey

2009-10-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

My roommate's dog is an unknown mix (of mythical renown amongst our community). One thing is for sure: she has some guard/alarm dog in her. When she hears any noise that might – in the slightest – indicate someone is coming through the door, she barks. And if she sees someone out our great window, then she's definitely letting us know about it. These are harsh "I'm on fire! I'm on fire and burning to death and it burns! SOMEONE HELP!" barks. They pierce your soul and leave you empty inside. (I would propose that it comes from one of the other five mouths.)

She barked hard, until today.

Today, she did not bark. She did not bark at the mailman. She did not bark when Jeff came home. She did not bark as Keith came home or went in and out of the front and back doors preparing to grill tonight (it smells good in here right now!).

Over the past couple weeks we've implemented a new strategy to quiet Honey. When she barks, we calmly lead her upstairs to her room (where she is happy to be). Crucially, the "upstairs" command comes immediately after the bark, so she's learning that barking gets her sent upstairs.

There's no punishment involved, but there is a consequence. Honey loves to see people come through the door. Especially women for some reason. It may have taken about two weeks, and it probably will take months more to solidify, but I think Honey is catching on. We've been diligent and the rewards today will only encourage us to stay consistent and help her improve.

It's been a nice quiet day, and I think everyone that knows Honey will be excited to hear this news!

(I also worked from home today to quiet Jupiter (from around the corner) each time he whimpered or scratched at his cage. After a while, he was quiet for periods lasting up to 2 hours. It was SO encouraging. I feel very positive about him tonight. And today was especially quiet.)

welcome to the latest century

2009-10-02T17:07:00.001-05:00

Here's how your web browser works.

HEY! HEY! Don't skip this unless you know this stuff already. It might demystify your monthly overage charges from your ISP, or help you yell in a more informed way at your roommates. It'll get back to this stuff in a few paragraphs, so hang in there.

When you type in a URL or click a link, your computer creates a little message (surely no more than a few kilobytes in the most extreme case). Your computer sends this message to your router (either through an Ethernet cable or across the wireless as a signal in the electromagnetic spectrum), which sends it to your modem (across the Ethernet cable) to your internet service provider (ISP) (across the DSL/phone/cable/satellite/etc.). All this time, the message's content hasn't really changed from that URL. Your ISP then sends this message to a name server, which is what knows how to map your URL to an IP address. When someone buys a domain name, they're in effect paying for these servers to include a mapping from their domain to the IP address of their webserver. Accordingly, the name server sends a new message containing the IP address for the original URL to your ISP which forwards it on back to your computer and finally your web browser.

Now the process starts over, this time using the HTTP protocol. Your web browser makes a new message (probably a GET request) and sends it to your router, modem, and then ISP. This time, the ISP sends it across the Internet backbone to the web server (identified by the IP address that the name server returned), which sends a HTTP response back to your web browser. Your web browser finally has the HTML (it's probably HTML but it can be other stuff) it needs to show you a web page. Other media in the web page, like images, are requested in a similar way before they can be shown as part of the page. Video, like YouTube for instance, are "streamed", which means that your computer is receiving later parts of the video (i.e. buffering) as it is showing you the parts it has already received.

(Wondering what HTTP messages look like?)

For all these things, the overall process is the same: your browser sends a message to a name server (via your router, modem, ISP) in order to translate a URL to an IP address, and then it starts communicating to that server (via your router, modem, ISP) to get the requested content (web page, image, video, etc.).

iTunes does a similar process (via your router, modem, ISP) when you search/preview/buy a song. Any program that uses the Internet basically does this same thing (via your router, modem, ISP).

Here's what makes this post relevant to your life. When your ISP gives you a bandwidth limit for the month, they actually give you two, one for upload (messages from your computer to your ISP) and one for download (messages from your ISP to your computer). When you click a link, there's at least two uploads and two downloads. Your browser uploads a request to translate a URL, your browser downloads the IP address, your browser uploads an HTTP request, and finally your browser downloads some HTML. Every time you upload something, your ISP counts how many bytes there was. If, in the billing cycle, that count exceeds your bandwidth limit^†, then you've broke the rules. (I think for upload bandwidth limits, they just really slowdown your upload rate.) But people don't usually approach the upload limit. Your ISP also counts the bytes it sends to you: how much you've downloaded. Overages here you're usually charged for.

So now you know that everything you do on the Internet contributes to your ISP's upload and download counts, regardless of how you're interacting with it. Unless, you're at a coffee shop, for instance. Then it's the coffee shop's account with the ISP that your Internet communications are associated with. This is why coffee shops usually have slower Internet. Otherwise, they'd hit their download limit very quickly because everyone would download their big files (movies, natch) there.

† – Technically, managing my units here, it's your bandwidth limit times one month, since a bandwidth is an amount of data (like 2 gigabytes) per an amount of time (like one month).

anyone speak dog?

2009-10-01T15:40:00.001-05:00

http://in.solit.us/archives/download/168297

I decided to record Jupiter left in the living room when I went to work this morning. My iPhone quit after 40 minutes, but he was still whining. :(

He made all this noise even with our other dog Honey laying across the living room – he wasn't actually alone (admittedly: she doesn't like him). Yesterday I put him in his crate in the living room with Jeff watching TV and Jeff said he went off as usual. I don't think he goes so crazy if he's left with Jeff without being in the crate; hence today's test.

I'm hoping someone out there knows dog and can tell me that he's saying "If only I had a banana!" or something. He whines with or without toys/chews; once I leave he's fixated on the door and window, regardless. He generally quiets down after about an hour.

Unfortunately, I have to go to work and I can't bring him along. That's a new quality of my dream job, by the way.

they have to be good!

2009-09-30T14:51:00.001-05:00

http://www.myspace.com/thefrisbys

goats smell, but so do new cars

2009-09-27T11:56:00.000-05:00

Phil talked about this, which pointed me at this, which is something I never really wrapped my brain around (or at least haven't been able to indefinitely internalize).

This aid on the wikipedia page helps me the most.

factoid

2009-09-27T11:41:00.000-05:00

As a child, I identified with Simon.

will of the gods!

2009-09-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

I just had four standoffs in a row with Jupiter.

Turning right on the leash. It took about 15 minutes of a circle for him to give in, and I didn't even actually wait until he was preventing any leash tension, just until he significantly improved.
Shake. Before we go in the door, I make him sit. He was really reluctant, so I commanded him to shake also. That took about 10 minutes.
Down. Then, before feeding we do a series of commands. He already sat, so I said down. That took 35 minutes.
Sit. I wanted to make sure he didn't go down just because he gave up on sitting (because he was starting to doze off, which was kind of cute), so I said sit. I gave up after 25 minutes and shuffled into him (I had gone down to my knees a while ago – standing for 50 minutes got boring) in order to make him do it. Then he shook, down, sat, shook, stood, sat, shook, and stood with quick responses but very slow movement. Then I let him eat; he hopped to that.

These commands are all normally immediately and quickly obeyed. Recently he's been testing me, but tonight was just ridiculous. It was 2 hours from walking out the door to him eating! Sheesh. Working on the turning right was new tonight, so I think that put him in a disobedient mood.

I don't feel great about entering standoffs, but I'm trying to reinforce that my commands are absolute and that it's more him choosing to obey that I'm looking for and less me physically posturing him. Instead of "sit", waiting, and then putting him in a sit with the leash or by tucking his back legs with my arm, I've been waiting until he obeys. That has been a matter of seconds, especially once I move to be right in front of him (he's usually looking out through of the glass door).

I hope this incident doesn't repeat itself, gods willing.

but this amazes me more

2009-09-24T15:00:00.001-05:00

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4496695

Rooooock Chaaaaalk Jayhaaaaaawk. Kaaaayyyyy Uuuuuuu.

Keepin' it G, y'all.

This still amazes me

2009-09-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

Olny srmat poelpe can raed this. I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is that the first and last ltteer be in the r ghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt.

(I told Tyler I would post more to my blog, so expect a more generous filter for a few weeks.)

190,080 inches

2009-09-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah. I ran with Nikki, who is famous. Sorry, Nikki – she wouldn't appreciate that I mentioned that. But I'm name dropping here. Give me a break; allow me to bask

Anyway. For those of you who forgot to wear your calculator watch today, that's three miles. We took it nice and slow. I was haunted by the same-old leg ghast, so she graciously stopped with me twice for a couple minutes to (attempt to) stretch. I still, after all these years, don't really know how to stretch that sonbitch, particularly not without taking off my shoes.

Pushing your running limits is rewarding (I wasn't expecting to best a mile), but, as I discussed with Jeff (not yet famous), it is very frustrating for something other than stamina (e.g. misbehaving muscles, sleeping feet, burps, other bodily functions) to curtail your run. So the gauntlet comes down: I'M COMING FOR YOU, PERONEUS PIPSQUEAK.

Jupiter is 6 months

2009-09-12T17:40:00.001-05:00

8 March 2009 + 6 months = 8 September 2009

Forgot to take these in the daytime, so please forgive the lighting.

His old photos are on Flickr, too.

I kenneled him last night because Adam Bennett was in town and the actual event was on pretty short notice. He was tuckered this morning, and then we went to Mutt Run, and now he's passed out on the couch.

This was the first time at a dog park, and it was great. He interacted very well with many dogs until he got very tired. The owners were attentive. He tried joining up with other dogs that were being taken for a walk a couple times, so I had to catch up and walk him back. And there was a Chiuaua that didn't mind that Jupiter was 50% playmate and 50% predator, but he responded very well to me telling him to tone it down.

Most is well in Jupiter land. He's not peed inside in a long while – I'm far more trusting now. Still tries to eat too many things: plastic, rocks, and toiler paper. Oh, toiler paper.

The separation anxiety is still strong. This is a difficult behavior to train him out of as my presence is the issue. He's plenty happy in his crate when he sleeps, but he panics when I'm not accessible (crate or no crate). Whining, drooling, barking, and sometimes peeing. Weighs heavy on me still, not knowing what to do. I work at home sometimes trying to increase the distance he can relax with the door to my room open. Once he's calm I start moving out of sight for minutes at a time; working our way up. This issue makes me lose my cool with him sometimes, as it's so restrictive of my freedom; that's something for me to work on. And sometimes he tries to walk in front of me on walks, but it's more his attention on something causes him to speed up – regardless: that's the other thing that can frustrate me. Calm is good. Calm is good.

He's otherwise healthy, happy, and friendly, even with the bigger dogs. Sometimes he's shies away pretty hard, but mostly he's making himself small asking for play or chasing and mouthing. And goodness, he loves people.

We get our first lure coursing practice soon! There was one I've missed because I was out of town, so we're looking forward to this one. And the second puppy class starts next week. We're both excited.

A Couple Contenders

2009-08-22T21:25:00.003-05:00

Some day Jupiter will have a sibling.

Schnauzer (undecided regarding size). I like that they look like the dog version of a (fantasy) dwarf. Out of left field, I know.

Pharoah Hound. I'm pretty consistent, I guess.

[Please yell at me in the comments if you're so angry about me linking to your photo.]

It's as easy as ABC

2009-06-30T14:37:00.006-05:00

Ahem.

Yes, I know NASA is not a "company."

"Mythical"?

My contributions were actually limited to the planning stages. I didn't have the time to implement or run the competition – Jupiter has been a happy hand full. Dr. Kimmell and Kevin Matlage (or "KMat" as he forces us to call him) deserve the credit for all their work this weekend alongside Dr. Gill. Wes and Megan Peck both planned and implemented a lot, too. And Mark Snyder became a PHP guru in short order for the website! I wasn't around enough to see the others.

I've already contacted the LJWorld asking for some sort of edit/correction about the attribution – I don't know if they'll be responsive.

Jupiter!

2009-05-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

I bought a puppy on 23 May 2009. His name is Jupiter and he is a saluki.

I bought him from Windrush Salukis. Kathy and Jeff were great to meet at Clinton Lake. They already had planned to come for a lure coursing trial and it was perfect timing: Jupiter was born 8 March, so he was the right age to hand off.

Yesterday was a really good day. I had been (and still am) getting really frustrated with his separation anxiety. If he can't see me, he starts whimpering and barking and he pees. This happens whenever I put him in his crate (even if I am right in front of him) or leave the room. What bothers me the most is that I can't interact with him in any way when he's whining or else I'll be rewarding that behavior. But letting a dog whine for too long (I've let it go for up to an hour and a half before) can lead to behavior problems down the road. There are tons of conflicting opinions out there about what to do. But my vet and my breeder say just let him wear himself out on it and then let him out when he's been quiet for a while. At night, I have no place to let him whine that doesn't keep up the roommates. It's been nerve-racking.

But: yesterday was a really good day. First, I took him on a walk and he did a great job! We had been practicing on the lead in the backyard with the commands "easy" and "let's go" and he responded to them very well on the actual walk. He stays at my side or a bit behind, not in front – just as I'd like. It was good to have a really positive experience like that after being mostly frustrated for a few days. Then, I made a strong effort to keep him from napping, and it payed off! He did not whine in his crate last night. A further stroke of genius: I woke him up to let him out at 2am (since he last drank at 10:30pm) and then waited for him to get tired (3am) before I put him back in the crate. He again made no complaint. I kept repeating "Good boy", "Good settle", and "I'm right here" and left my hand hanging over the bed in front of the crate until I passed out. It was so encouraging to get a good night's sleep with him in the right place and not bothering the roommies!

We'll do another walk today, for sure. House-training is going well. I'm using close tether training and a shaker-box to interrupt him. I've been praising/treating for eliminating outside – I use "void" as my command instead of "pee" or "potty" because I feel silly saying those words. (And I think "Void" is the name of some Final Fantasy boss, which is always a happy reference in my book.) I take him out every 90 minutes – as he catches on and becomes more comfortable alone the crate, I'll ween that to a schedule I can actually keep. His poop is really predictable in the morning (about 12 hours after dinner), but he only goes occasionally in the afternoon and sometimes waits until evening. He's only pooped inside once at my house (day one) and once in each of two other houses, but I think that's sort of expected with new places. It's the urination that he's not doing so well with.

See photos at my Flickr page. You can see his father, a lure coursing beast named Marquis, here. I met him this weekend, too, and he's gorgeous in person. Kathy says her dogs are usually 55 pounds, so I'm inferring Jupiter will be about the same size as his father, which is exactly what I want.

two times to remember

2009-05-12T11:57:00.000-05:00

I am now (subject to a double-check with the department) finished with my Ph.D. class work.

2009 May 7th 3:20pm – I finished my last class ever. Appropriately, Perry was teaching it.

2009 May 12th 11:41am – I finished my last final ever. Andy Gill proctored the exam, which covered functional programming (using Haskell). That might very well remain the last time I sat in a classroom as someone taking a class.

we left Tyler for dead – or: how I became a Zombicidal Maniac

2009-04-25T03:33:00.004-05:00

Aaron, Stace, and I spent over 12 hours one day trying to beat the No Mercy campaign of Left 4 Dead on the Expert difficulty setting. We made memories but not victories.

Tonight Tyler C joined us. And in about 2 or 3 hours we did it! Having a fourth human player really helped.

Unfortunately, Tyler didn't make it on to the chopper that saved us. He was literally inches away when he suddenly got yanked up into mid-air for no obvious reason. (This was right after I valiantly saved him!) We three were already on the chopper so the level immediately ended with Tyler being eaten by zombies as we somberly rose to safety. I actually screamed "noooo!" in absolutely sincere horror and disbelief when I saw it happen.

I'm sorry Tyler. But – that said – I am proud to be among the 12.7% percent of players to have pulled it off. And in my book, I know there were four survivors.

my intentions

2009-04-21T15:32:00.002-05:00

[Let me know if this image is making trouble.]

That's the hair plan. Foxy. I am willing to use product.

annoying on Mythbusters, awesome at TED

2009-04-16T13:24:00.002-05:00

I thank whoever Rory->Greg is. This is a terribly endearing and extremely entertaining TED presentation by Adam Savage.

real things are analog, yo

2009-04-15T11:58:00.003-05:00

Like I said, digital models of brains are barking up the wrong tree. (via Sean)

sweet sweet relief

2009-04-14T23:34:00.003-05:00

Oh, and I just wanted to thank everyone at the Africa house for taking such good care of my favorite jacket while it was lost for three weeks. 'Preciate it.

(I didn't tell anyone, and they have a lot of jackets there.)

just venting really

2009-04-14T22:38:00.003-05:00

Rory shared this article, so I'll yell at him the next time I see him. It's a bunch of basic computer science ideas that I already understand surrounded by unfounded claims that I'm wrong. Fun read for the layperson, however.

Once I get to the end, his claim is less drastic than I thought throughout and bothers me less.

The rest of this post is a jumble of tangents my thoughts took.

Chinese Room

Searle's Chinese Room is prominent in Schulman's article.

I don't like it, because understanding Chinese isn't really the question, it's understanding what the other person is saying. A language like Chinese or English is empty – the incoming notes could be a well-formed but completely non-sensical Chinese statement and the person in the room wouldn't know what to say back. The Chinese Room example just wraps a known intelligence – a human – in a layer of machine (the rules of translation).

This relates to the misstep that I see Schulman taking: he talks about "intelligence" or "understanding a children's story" as if such things exist separate from humans exhibiting them. We have no real definition for "intelligence". I believe it's because it doesn't exist separate from us &ndash we are machines interacting and we think we do it in a special way called intelligence. The Chinese Room, like the Turing Test before it, involves a human in the intelligence test because we need to sprinkle in some "real intelligence" into the scenario, since we cannot otherwise characterize how to pass the test.

What?

I don't even know where he's going with this, but I disagree with it. He eventually squirrels it into relevance with one of Searle's apparent contradictions.

But it would be incorrect to take the notion of a hierarchy to mean that the lowest layer—or any particular layer—can better explain the computer’s behavior than higher layers. Suppose that you open a file sitting on your computer’s desktop. The statement “when I clicked the mouse, the file opened” is causally equivalent to a description of the series of state changes that occurred in the transistors of your computer when you opened the file. Each is an equally correct way of interpreting what the computer does, as each imposes a distinct set of symbolic representations and properties onto the same physical computer, corresponding to two different layers of abstraction. The executing computer cannot be said to be just ones and zeroes, or just a series of machine-level instructions, or just an arithmetic calculator, or just opening a file, because it is in fact a physical object that embodies the unity of all of these symbolic interpretations. Any description of the computer that is not solely physical must admit the equivalent significance of each layer of description.

The layers are not equivalent. He earlier spoke of the duality between the symbols manipulated by a formal system (as a computer implements, e.g.) and the represented real object. I think he 1) chose a bad example regarding "opening a file" since it's a very computer-centric concept and 2) leaves out the notion that the monitor connects all the electronic state changes back to the real world &ndash the file is open because we see it presented to us on the screen. That is the result, showing the file's contents to the user. All the lower layers are just how it was done – a distinction he had previously pounded away on.

Ray Kurzweil

When I say the brain is a machine, I mean there's nothing unnatural about it – no magical piece (nothing playing the role of the man in the Chinese Room). I do not mean it needs to be digital. In fact, I'm doubt it is. Schulman points out that Kurzweil does too. Maybe I should read his book.

An old friend

Also, Shulman doesn't smell the problem of induction.

As an empirical hypothesis, the question of whether the mind can be completely described procedurally remains open (as all empirical hypotheses must), but it should be acknowledged that the failure thus far to achieve this goal suggests that the answer to the question is no—and the longer such a failure persists, the greater our confidence must be in that answer.

There's no basis for this claim.

laptop sunscreen (HA!)

2009-04-11T13:27:00.003-05:00

I'm on my porch today because it's so nice out. But it's also sunny, so it's tough to see my laptop screen. I was fidgeting with it and found that it's actually easiest to see if the sun is over my shoulder shining straight on it. I then noticed that changing the brightness of my screen's back-light has no effect. It's all the way down (and so saving me considerable battery time) and I can still see pretty well. The colors are all washed out, but it's fine for stuff like writing and programming.

'cause I know him

2009-04-09T23:06:00.002-05:00

Loveline and Liquid Buzz ("under construction" is so lame) Liquid Buzz (MySpace... really?) are an utter waste of an otherwise wonderful radio station. Who decides to air this crap? Especially at 10pm! Come on.

Jason! Save me!

Nostalgia

2009-04-09T22:56:00.003-05:00

Kate's email -> isthisyour.name
-> Carl's blog I didn't know about
-> Boys' State photo
-> guy I got along with
-> Carl's Boys' State photo
-> other friends' Boys' State photos

Thanks, Kate!

"Quit doggin' people."

2009-04-05T11:14:00.002-05:00

My friend Sean sent this article along.

I suggest not reading the comments. Comments on the Internet are a cold and ugly thing.

Wonder Woman should smack some sense into them...

2009-04-01T16:18:00.004-05:00

Remember my anger? It peaked again today.

I bought this big 99-song album (for .99 cents!) but didn't want to download it all at once, so I paused it after 20 songs. A few days later I tried to download 20 more but it wouldn't budge. I got feisty again.

To Amazon.com:
I downloaded 20 of the 99 songs of a recent order, then paused. When I went to resume them earlier this week and again today, but the Downloader application says "Download no longer available. Please contact customer service."

In my unpleasant, last interaction with Amazon.com, I was reassured: "... .amz files do not expires". Should that statement have been qualified?

They re-enabled my download rights today and I got the songs. But beware:

From Amazon.com:
Also note that if more than 3 hours have passed since you first made your purchase, your files may no longer be available for download. If this happens or you experience any additional problems, please contact us again so we can determine the best way to help you.

FYI.

Mooj

2009-03-29T19:05:00.004-05:00

I met some salukis today! They were awesome, and it was a relief. My allergies were just barely piqued, and I think it was by a particular few. Yay.

The breeder lives in Odessa, MO which is just an hour and a half away, and where my mom's parents lived. We had a long visit. They have a "pet quality" 1 year old that they would give me if I liked, named Mooj. Yeah, give! They subscribe to the ancient custom of never selling salukis, only giving them as a gift. How awesome is that?

I'm off to visit another breeder (with 3 year olds) in Moberly, MO tomorrow evening. And Stephanie told me there's a breeder with 6 month old pups in Manhattan, KS, so that'll be a visit soon, I hope.

Defining sport

2009-03-28T13:36:00.003-05:00

[I drafted this post on 17 June 2008, and have just recently finished it.]

It's an age old problem. I discussed it at lunch today with four other engineers. They helped me codify my feelings about the word. This is still in flux, but I wanted to post here so Aaron could have an audience to respond. Victoria, as Aaron's nemesis on this one, you are also invited to comment.

Player-player antagonism I put this one first, because it seems to be my most severe requirement. You must be able to directly affect the other players. Mind games don't count.
Objective score No judges! Some sort of inarguable point system. Ties are OK.
Physical finesse It's hard to think what this rules out: most games require a skill.
Intense physical exertion Some activities have long-term wear and tear on the body, but a real sport will make you sweat and breathe heavy.
Extended endurance And not just briefly! A sports event – and each player's participation in it – needs to last.

Some popular sports: ultimate, basketball, soccer, sumo, tennis, cycling.

Some popular non-sports:

	Antagonism	Objectivity	Finesse	Intensity	Endurance
Poker	☑	☑	☒	☒	☒
Laned sprint	☒	☑	☑	☑	☒
Any lane race: swim sprints, fields sprints, hurdles, etc. – the lanes rule out antagonism.
Laned distance	☒	☑	☑	☑	☑
Boxing	☑	☒	☑	☑	☑
Judges' decisions are not inarguable. Fight 'til one can't fight.
Golf	☒	☑	☑	☒	☒
Pool	☑	☑	☑	☒	☒
Arm-wrestling	☑	☑	☑	☑	☒
It's a tough fight, but it's a matter of minutes before it's over.

Obviously I'm being severe in requiring every quality of an activity in order for it to qualify as a sport. It's just a way to start understanding the different parts of it, in my mind. And there's something to be said for varying degrees of each quality – but not here and now.

I must speak to baseball since Aaron likes it, I don't, and it's a particularly tricky analysis. Antagonism, objectivity, and finesse are easy yeses. But intensity and endurance – it's harder to convince me. The pitcher definitely has to endure, but there's not so much intensity. Stealing a base definitely requires an intense sprint, but endurance is not a common concern for a base-runner. The variety within baseball positions means the team as a whole has to have these things in some combination, but no player needs them all. On the other hand, they play everyday. So there's seasonal endurance, but that's a much longer period than I have in mind. American football shares many of these considerations.

Maybe you'll make some claims about sports I didn't cover in the comments? Or – surely not – disagree with me on some I did.

photography

2009-03-27T10:28:00.002-05:00

Applause

emasculation

2009-03-26T13:30:00.002-05:00

The helpful food services dude went to the backroom to get parmesan when I asked of they had any.

Then he asked, "You want a little sprinkle sprinkle?"

I could only manage a nod. And I was a bit worried about what exactly I was agreeing to.

bad business: music

2009-03-26T08:58:00.003-05:00

Technology changes things, and in particular the digital formats have up-ended music distribution. It's cost-free to make a perfect copy of an mp3. And mp3s are faithful dups of actual performances – better quality, often, than the live performances you have access too.

All of my music is legal, in the sense that I purchased the rights to the songs I have digital versions of. This just sort of happened one day when I got a new computer, and I've been in a financial position (and a picky enough music person) to persist. But why am I doing this? It's stupid. But legal, I guess?

The way I see it, the music industry is obsolete. Because audio is so easily reproduced and – face it – easy to record, the music industry no longer serves anyone but itself. But there's people whose job depends on it. What do we say to them? I think "Tough luck."

I'd like to dissolve record companies, turn to completely digital distribution, and only pay for live performances. Let's pay for actual entertainment again! People can burn their own CD if they want one and – calm yourself – they'll surely be a niche for those with a vinyl thing. Realize that writing music shouldn't pay the bills unless it's mind-blowing (which doesn't even require the author to record anything anymore!); performing should, because that's the experience that can't be perfectly reproduced for free.

Too harsh? I imagine a few of you have opinions on this and I'd like to hear them.

This is Daptone Records...

2009-03-26T08:57:00.001-05:00

This sampler is shaping up to be the best free music ever.

calendar curiosities

2009-03-25T09:30:00.003-05:00

A fun tool: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/birthday.html.

And of course, I am the focus of the attention. I think I was born at 1am.

10,000 days later: Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 1am

15,000,000 minutes later: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 5pm

250,000 hours later: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 5pm

1500 weeks later: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 1am

1,000,000,000 seconds later: Saturday, November 15, 2014 at 2:46:40am

yep, it's true

2009-03-22T09:57:00.003-05:00

I definitely just applied for an account at the Redneck Bank. Can't ignore 5.25% APY, especially considering that my ING Direct account just plummeted to 1.50%.

happiness is complex

2009-03-21T15:27:00.008-05:00

I realized I want a porch on my house, with a sidewalk. (Rory shared a related article.)

I got to thinking and imagined a visitor to my porch challenging my porch lifestyle (on my porch! the nerve): something about missing out on all the history, culture, and other things happening out there. Then I envisioned my response – more as an abstract, fuzzy bag of words than something I feel like serializing here. The visitor responds, "You're not a 'happy person' are you?"

I'm writing about my answer to that question.

Math is a comfort zone for me, but imaginary numbers are just weird. Applications of complex numbers (the sum of a real number and an imaginary number) do, however, abound in engineering. I got quite familiar with them in electromagnetics. They do have a fun history and are an important part of my favorite formula (snort snort heh), an instance of Euler's.

-1 = e^{i π}

Just look at all the pieces!

The Ol' WP says Descartes called them imaginary in a derisive manner, which returns us to the porch. I use it derisively here as well. I am happy. I am finishing up my second 16 hour car ride this week and I've been cheerful throughout! It's the big picture, fluffy, abstact stuff that weighs me down. I feel happy about the day-to-day and struggle with the imaginary, speculative, ethical stuff.

I started off trying to say that my happiness was a number like day-to-day.speculative for emphasizing that the day-to-day is more important, but the whole radix system didn't work on any more levels. Then I remembered complex numbers.

So my happiness is a complex number (OMG, right?). The real part is a hefty positive number for my day-to-day happiness. My negativity is in the imaginary part. And here comes the clever, optimistic part. Multiplying conjugate complex numbers eliminates the imaginary part: perhaps pair bonding relieves some of the negativity associated with an muddled future. So, if two people are a good match (conjugal even), i²=-1 kicks in and the negativity of the product of their happinesses is eliminated. (The details fall apart on this model if you push too hard...)

/me bows. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

Oh no!

2009-03-19T18:41:00.001-05:00

I think I have two large, soft tumors where my lovehandles would be if I had lovehandles.

Andy would be proud

2009-03-15T20:02:00.002-05:00

I sent this email to Amazon.com MP3 Downloads customer service. A little background: with Amazon.com you get high sound quality MP3s for individual songs. If you want to download an album (such as the sweet Daily Deals), you need to use a separate program – the Amazon Downloader – which uses the .amz file to download all the MP3s. Thus, when you buy an album, you only download an .amz file and then download the MP3s later.

Do .amz files expire? I'm on a trip, but would like to purchase daily deals. Can I purchase the .amz file, email it home, and then download the MP3s to my home computer next week?

Thanks for your time.

Now I'm usually polite and forgiving with customer service, but this response was just so wrong that it pissed me off. I'm pointlessly posting the entire thing here because I had to read the whole thing, so you do too.

Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com.

First, let me apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue. The problem you reported is not a common error associated with the download process.

This can be corrected by deleting these temporary files. Go to the "Cache" or "Temporary Internet Files" option on your web browser (if you use Netscape, go to "Options" and choose "Network Preferences"; if you use Internet Explorer, go to "Tools" and choose "Internet Options"), and select the option to delete your cache or temporary files.

I request you to uninstall the Amazon MP3 Downloader application from your computer.¹ If you do not know how to uninstall software from your computer, please refer to the Help section for your operating system or refer to the Downloader install page for more information.

I've also restored your access to "Scream (AmazonMP3 Exclusive Version)" by Chris Cornell, so that you can download them again by directly accessing the files from Your Media Library on Amazon.com at no additional charge.²

Your MP3 download may not be successful if your browser settings are not configured properly. You will need to enable your browser to accept cookies and allow pop-up windows from Amazon.com. Firewall and virus programs may also prevent successful download of your Amazon MP3 Music files. Before attempting another download, please visit the Help page below for tips on how to configure your system to allow downloads from Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200197240

TO DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR MEDIA LIBRARY:

1) Navigate to Your Media Library from Your Account or at this URL: http://www.amazon.com/library
2) Log in using your Amazon.com account e-mail address and password if prompted during the process.
3) Click on the "Downloads" tab.
4) To filter the results so only your music downloads are displayed, hover the cursor over the arrow on the "Downloads" tab and choose "Amazon MP3" from the pop-up menu.
5) Display songs available for download by locating the album in the list and clicking on the "Download" button. If you purchased only a single song, Your Media Library will still display your purchases by the album the song is from.
6) On the album detail page, click the "Download" link next to each song available to start the download.
7) As you do not have the Downloader installed, choose "Save" when prompted to save the .mp3 file.

As you downloaded a song from your browser without the Amazon MP3 Downloader, your Web browser settings control the location of the download.³ If you search for files with the extension ".mp3," you should be able to locate your purchases.

After you download a file, no further downloads will be possible from Your Media Library or through the Amazon MP3 Downloader. Because you are generally limited to download the file only once, we encourage you to always make backup copies of your MP3 files.

If you still encounter a technical problem with the file or unable to download the item successfully, please contact us again using this below mentioned URL so that we can assist you further or refund you for the same.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/music-downloads.html/

You can also reach Amazon MP3 Customer Service specialists directly via phone, please click the Customer Service button in the Contact Us box in the right-hand column of our Amazon MP3 Help pages:

http://www.amazon.com/help/amazonmp3

You'll be able to enter your phone number and we'll call you at your convenience. Contacting us through the Web site ensures that you reach our specialists directly, allows you to verify security before a call is placed, and ensures we have your account information ready when we call you. Our live customer service associates are available from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, seven days a week.

Again, I apologize for the trouble you had with this Amazon MP3 purchase.

Thanks for shopping in Amazon MP3 Music Store.

*****
HOW TO AVOID DOWNLOAD PROBLEMS

Amazon.com works with your Web browser to download MP3 music files. Here are some tips to help you successfully complete your download:

- Click each song "Download" link one at a time slowly. Clicking too quickly or clicking multiple links in rapid succession may cause an error.

- If using the Downloader, make sure a song has started downloading or appears in the Downloader queue before clicking "Download" for the next song.

- If downloading MP3 files without the Downloader, wait until one song has downloaded completely before clicking Download for the next song

*****

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=...
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=...

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Vikram,R
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

Thanks for reading this far.

This is an overly aggressive and totally unrelated suggestion.
This is the last thing I bought, but is again totally unrelated to my question.
And... I did use the Downloader to buy that album.

I clicked no and pressed the issue.

Please route my previous question to someone who both understands English and has purchased an album using your Amazon MP3 Downloads service. I am disgruntled about the obvious disregard for my inquiry shown by the first reponse.

That was kind of rough – I admit. Perhaps insensitive? But I felt my snappiness wasn't misplaced. It worked.

Hello from Amazon.com.

First please allow me to apologize for the delay in the response. Please be assured we are making every effort to assist customers as quickly as possible.

I'm sorry to hear that you had an unsatisfactory experience when you contacted us previously.

We pride ourselves in convenience and efficiency at Amazon.com, but in this instance we have fallen short of our goal. I'm truly sorry that your impression of doing business with Amazon.com has been so negative.

I request you to surely go ahead and purchase daily deal and download it to your home computer whenever you wish because .amz files do not expires. If any time you feels that you need to re-download the songs we will restore the songs for you at no additional cost any time.

You are generally limited to download the file only once. However, in any case you loose the data or unable to download the file at any time, we will make an exception and restore your access to MP3 tracks.

Please be assured that we are here to make things easier for you. We will take each and every action to prevent you from bearing any loss.

As a representative of Amazon.com, I want to assure you that we value our customers' trust above all else--it's the foundation on which our company was built.

Please be assured that we are here to make things easier for you and will do whatever we can to prevent you from bearing any kind of loss. We want you to have a pleasant, successful experience with our website each time you visit.

he files you purchase from Amazon MP3 Music Downloads are free of any digital rights management software to allow you more freedom with managing your music library; however, we do ask that you respect the licensing agreements outlined by Amazon.com and our content providers. This includes avoiding any use of the MP3 files that is specifically prohibited in the Amazon MP3 Music Downloads Terms of Use.

I hope you found this information helpful. You can also access additional information about our MP3 Music Downloads in our Help pages here:

www.amazon.com/help/amazonmp3

Thanks for your interest in MP3 Music Downloads on Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=...
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=...

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Rohit J.
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

Similar to Bill Gates' suggestion to charge for sending emails, I would much rather pay a dollar per customer service issue than pay the time to wade through the first few pointless interactions (like this story or being transferred on the phone).

bup bum... ba da da da dum!

2009-03-13T15:14:00.002-05:00

I don't recall when or with whom I came up with this idea, but we noticed an uncanny parallel between the principal ballpark condiments and the Triforce.

You see: Mustard, pickle relish, and ketchup nicely correspond to power, wisdom, and courage. Mustard, packing the most potent punch, is clearly power. Pickles are aged and thus wise (and relish is pretty much pickle shards...). And ketchup is practically liquid courage: it makes anything you don't like easier to eat.

<dorkdom>
Parker and Tyler and I decided long ago that Parker is Courage, Tyler is Power, and I am Wisdom. And!: I prefer relish, Tyler mustard, and Parker ketchup. Go cosmic irony.
</dorkdom>

en passant

2009-03-08T16:07:00.002-05:00

Also in the funny friend department, Parker landed a good one.

(yelling to upstairs) Parker: What are you doing Sunday?
(yelling from upstairs) Tyler: I'm busy, some of my co-workers are coming over to celebrate my birthday.
(quietly, to me) Parker: When was his birthday?
Me: It's Monday... as is mine.
Parker: Aww shit. I just betrayed the fact that I didn't remember yours by trying to hide from Tyler that I didn't know his. Fuckin' en passant bullshit.

It took me a while to understand the appropriateness of the en passant reference, but once I thought about it, it was genius.

This is not the right way to recount such a funny situation.

eliminade? elimonade? elemonade?

2009-03-08T15:57:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday, I heard – for the first time in my life – my doctor say, "You could lose a few pounds." That was a bit of a shock, particularly because I'm in fine shape. I was a few pounds heavier than I normally am (175-180)... but I have been slammin' some no-bake cookies in the last couple weeks. Then again, I've also been doing push-ups and sit-ups; perhaps it's new muscle.

In actuality, I believe it was because it was an early appointment and I hadn't yet done my morning duties. Dooties. Poop.

I was telling Adrienne this story on the phone and used the word eliminated instead of pooped. I really like the replacement, but I don't know where I heard it.

Today we were discussing the common topic of drinking our own urine. She said "u-lemonade," which I thought was kind of a lame portmanteau. Then I realized she said elimin-ade, which is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. +1 Adrienne.

Billy Batson must really like music

2009-03-03T22:49:00.003-06:00

My favorite non-obvious iPhone application is Shazam. It is the application that is most specifically useful to have on my person at all times and works just like I need it to. I use it in the car all the time. For instance, on the way home tonight, I used it to identify Bring it on Home off of KJHK, amidst three other songs.

I just watched the riff of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with Stace and A. It was excellent, like the glorious, glorious MST3K of yore and left me eager to watch another. We three plan on soon watching the riff of Battlefield Earth.

Ricky Söze

2009-03-02T20:58:00.002-06:00

A favorite movie of mine, and the best Del Toro role, ever.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Unusual Suspect

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

And, for Adrienne:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Ricky Gervais

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

fortune cookie, ftw

2009-03-01T19:58:00.003-06:00

You could make a name for yourself in the field of medicine.
[seoblackhat.com]

At a Chinese buffet with two teacher friends, I was listening as they both commiserated about the uncertainty of their unemployment after the year's end. I repeated my (ridiculous) suggestion/offer of a (ridiculous) small business entrepreneurship that (ridiculously) required no capital.

One found some comfort in this fortune. I'll have to find another business partner, I suppose.

infatuation or love?

2009-02-28T15:05:00.004-06:00

I'm totally stuck on this breed. I plan on raising a puppy, but I need to figure out the best way to have one in Lawrence. It will be a while.

Obviously, you can learn a bit from Wikipedia, if you're interested. salukiclub.org has some more. And you can find me fawning over possibilities at Saluki Tree of Life Alliance, open adoption cases.

Basically, I need tall fences, a large, open, and fenced space to let her run (it's going to be a girl), and a schedule with daily exercise (long walk, preferably run). Feeding costs $2 dollars a day or so, the pup will cost $350 for pet to $1000 for show pedigree, and I've tried one insurance quote at $280 a year.

I'll be visiting the local kennel club and the Heartland Coursing Association to see what sight-hounds are like. Tyler and I will also be taking Honey to some training classes starting in late March, which is pretty exciting.

More images and videos (the first video is hilarious, and the second pulled at my heart strings...):

[Pictures, from pavementsofsilver.files.wordpress.com, www.pedigreedatabase.com, www.vivapets.com; let me know if any should be brought down.]

for my iPhone peeps

2008-10-27T16:37:00.002-05:00

They should FIX IT!

the stem cell registry

2008-10-20T12:00:00.003-05:00

www.marrow.org

A friend's father is treating his cancer with chemotherapy. But it's a rare form and he needs suitable stem cells. We're all hoping that his three siblings will provide a match. If they don't, he turns to the donor registry and they say the chances aren't good.

I didn't even know a stem cell registry existed. Getting on it is like giving blood, so the chance to save a life is certainly worth it. Look into joining.

Yay T&T

2008-10-20T11:32:00.002-05:00

Andy asked me out of the blue a while ago about AT&T's business enrollment options. I put in my school address.

Well, today I saw this line on my new bill.

National Account Discount -11.48

A little googling convinced me it's because I signed up at that page.

Thanks, Andy!

Do other phone companies have stuff like this?

Computers: D'oh!

2008-10-14T10:31:00.003-05:00

A little cross-action between The Colbert Report, Rory's shared items (half way down, Rise of the Financial Machines), and mine (same title).

She is fetching.

New plans for the backyard

2008-10-10T18:11:00.000-05:00

Nick

Color Effect

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

move over Hugh, Michael's the new hair in town

OH Equip it! I mean... Put it on.

frozen bananas are handy, with one caveat

and now I'm asking for it

Good Foods

Avatar, amendment 1

I'll read the rest of the poem tomorrow

holy cow

Avatar

whelp

disappointment!

it was only a matter of time

a meal

books (for me) to read

up all night

how is this possible?

glory hallelujah computer-style

no bookmark manager for Mac Chrome beta

I could sing

mini labor

get my whiff?

west coast slang

sweet bumper sticker

ship this

what does this mean?

about two years now

reverse Internet

surrender

canine champloo

the secure, sleepy screen saver

The sleepy screen saver

Why use a screen saver at all?

How to make the application a screen saver

Final touches

our college athletes are so respectable

(begrudgingly) resolved

wierd and unwelcome

weird but welcome

scientists are hot

Exercise is Goooood

Defying Gravity

Well I was completely anti-social today

my website and JavaScript stuff

twords... *palm to the face*

JavaScript doesn't do dos

Quoridor

Free albums

Chicago Falcon by The Budos Band

clever girl

PFFFT

even worse

I forgot to post my thoughts on Terminator Salvation...

two more factoids

a quieter Honey

welcome to the latest century

anyone speak dog?

they have to be good!

goats smell, but so do new cars

factoid

will of the gods!

but this amazes me more

This still amazes me

190,080 inches

Jupiter is 6 months

A Couple Contenders

It's as easy as ABC

Jupiter!

two times to remember

we left Tyler for dead – or: how I became a Zombicidal Maniac

my intentions

annoying on Mythbusters, awesome at TED

real things are analog, yo

sweet sweet relief

just venting really

laptop sunscreen (HA!)

'cause I know him

Nostalgia

twords... palm to the face