Irreconsilable Oddities

Just too good

2005-05-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

I hate it when I buy something and don't like it. Like a drink. Even worse is when I buy a whole case.

The chemists that came up with Melon did a good job. Too good. Who drinks melon juice anyways????

Math help from those nice guys at the IRS

2005-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Say you need to solve a quadratic equation, but can't remember that formula from high school; or were never really that good with formulas anyways. No problem. The nice people at the IRS have come out with: IRS Form QF.

Never say the government isn't looking out for you.

Its soo slow

2005-03-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

I don't really know how the world lived before 100bT. Maybe it was because large hard drives were 20MB. (That's MB not GB, its the one that came after kB.) Now we have 200GB drives, and its taking forever to transfer the data off the old one onto the new one.

This is of course because the new one is in a USB enclosure which is hooked up to a laptop that does not know about the wonderful world of 2.0, so I'm stuck at 11mbit/sec theoretical (which translates into longer than I want to wait, for transfering 100+GBs).

I'd really like to have a laptop with USB2.0, of course, then I'd need 1GbT ethernet too, and a different network switch, and PCI-express, and a new graphics card, and a bigger screen that could use it, and ...

Beautiful pictures

2005-03-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

With four years of engineering drafting in my distant educational experience, and decades doodling with online drawing tools, I can appreciate how much work doing a large illustration can be.

This is a nice image, even if its just some pedistrian GM 1.8L engine going in an Opel. Do people even buy that car anymore? Oh well, I'll appreciate the probable months that went into creating a full size cut-away drawing of this thing.

2005-03-24T01:00:00.000-08:00

This is pretty funny:

How many 5 year olds could you take on at once?

Ok, so they're not going to be black belt, but they're going to get a little bit of training, and all they have to do is knock you out. I know I have a hard time taking on my two kids (though I'm handi-capped by the consequence of having to pay the hospital bill when they end up in the emergency room), though some guys on the list think they can take on 30.

Another language to learn

2005-03-23T22:00:00.000-08:00

Guy Steele, one of the wranglers of Lisp, and co-creator of Java (doesn't that sound like an odd mix?); is working on a new language. Its for scientists and others that want to get lots of computations done quickly (sounds like my kind of language).

Its called Fortress. Cool name.

There shall be consequences

2005-03-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

My firstborne has finished off my fritos while I was not looking.

This does not bode well.

This will happen with kids.

2005-03-06T15:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to having multiple kids, I often find stange phrases wandering through my head.

Califlower
Sweet and Sour
About an hour
vegitales.

If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about.

Its totally dead

2005-03-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

What was a lame, almost dead, lasts five minutes, poor excuse for a battery has now totally kicked the bucket.

When I stick this battery in my laptop now, it just laughs at me, flashing a yellow light at my on-and-off constantly; saying, "You call this a battery? I wouldn't even run a cheap digital watch with this ..."

Rather cold.

2005-03-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

I didn't want to leave the heat on in my basement while I was gone for a couple of days, so I shut it off. Probably a mistake as its 58F today down here. Brrrr.

So it doesn't always work

2005-02-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

We once ruined the "design" of a trade show booth by taping pieces of white paper (with masking tape) to the slick black tops of the kiosks surfaces. Why? Because the optical mice wouldn't work otherwise.

I'm remembering this as I haplessly push around an optical mouse hooked to my laptop, sitting on a "fashionable" glass dining room table.

I forget

2005-02-26T22:00:00.000-08:00

I was going to write something tonight, but by the time I got around to writing it; I couldn't remember what is was.

Dang it.

Its going to be a cold winter

2005-02-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

Here I thought winter was almost over, but then I go and check the seven day forcast today, and what does sprintpcs tell me?

Snow
Snow
Snow
Snow
Snow

Just swell.

Following conventions

2005-02-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

There's a rule in design, action always goes from left to right. The image I found for Falling Stars is right:

The funny thing is, the actual book is wrong. Somebody swapped the picture in the other way (no the text isn't backwards too). It makes a difference on a subconscious level too. Very curious. (or just stupid)

Just about a complete waste

2005-02-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

I don't buy books very often, so it was especially annoying that one of the two books I bought yesturday (Lodestar), I had actually already read. Well at least I got the fourth book in the series, Falling Stars; and reviewers aren't as embarassed by it as the previous one. (The first book in the series: Firestar was such an excellent book, that Michael Flynn had a hard time keeping up the same level of greatness across subsequent books.)

Healthy food gone bad

2005-01-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

One item on my grocery list today was rice cakes for the kids. Rice cakes are empty food: not much in them nutrisionally or calorie wise. Sort of styrofoam packing material with a little bit of salt for flavoring. At least thats how they started out.

Today on the shelf I found 'cool ranch flavor, spicy jalapenos, cracker-jacks, peanut butter, caramel chocolate chip, white chedder and extra buttery popcorn flavors. But no plain ones. Besides the extensive list of chemicals, some of them had more calories than potato chips. What was originally a sort-of good idea had gone completely off the deep end.

Simple things

2005-01-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere that they standardized headset plugs for cellphones so that they're interchangable, which is good I guess; but I was really impressed when I took my cellphone ear-bud and plugged it into my panasonic cordless phone and it worked. That's simply amazing.

Not even difficult

2005-01-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

So the preview for Robots does the usual quicktime redirect thing which means while you can find the reference to:

http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/robots/robots_480.mov

That's just a short file that points to the real movie. But somebody forgot to press a button somewhere, because the reference isn't encoded or even compressed. Its just sitting there in plain text:

robots_m480.mov
(Don't press it unless you want the 19MB download)

Not quite what we were expecting.

2005-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

Went to look up some images, and of course some of them aren't there any more. This error page looks normal, but it isn't quite:

The page is too drunk to be found
The page you are looking for might be passed out in a bar, crumpled on the steps in front of its apartment, or is temporarily sleeping it off by its sister's house.

Please try the following:

Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser does not contain any alcoholic content.

If you reached this page by clicking a link, please contact the Web site administrator to alert them that the page is on a bender again and the keys to its car should be hidden promptly.

...

Real life and the law

2004-12-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

Platform emulators are pretty good these days, you can get anything from classic arcade machines to full Apple ][ and C64 machines. One tricky part is getting the software though. Once apon a time everyone just put the files up along with the software, but the evil copyright lawyers showed up and spoiled all the fun.

Now a days things are a bit more convoluted, but only if you're not paying attention:

Here is a list of general Palm emulators, there's probably more than you think. But the one most of you care about is LJZ, so here's the lowdown...
"Where can I find ROMs?"

I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you. On a completely unrelated note you really shouldn't go up a directory on the videos. It's just so important I thought I would just remind you in a completely random part of my guide.

From Emuboards Officially Unofficial Ultimate Zodiac Guide

Taking Risks

2004-11-22T22:35:00.000-08:00

From warren buffet (a very rich guy) in his 2003 letter to stockholders:

Charlie and I detest taking even small risks unless we feel we are being adequately compensated for doing so. About as far as we will go down that path is to occasionally eat cottage cheese a day after the expiration date on the carton.

Important safety tips

2004-11-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

Things not to forget:

An oven mitt cannot be used as a welding glove.

Welding gloves do not make your hands fireproof, so don't leave them in the wood stove for extended periods of time. (Better yet, don't reach in the wood stove at all.

Cool sketch

2004-11-13T02:13:00.000-08:00

I hunt around on google images a lot to find art to go with my writing. I find a lot of stuff that isn't what I was looking for but is neat anyways. Like this under "cat keyboard":

Sort of conflicting messages there with the growl, claws and the flower on top.

HTML codes

2004-11-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

The best way to get better at HTML is to steal stuff from other web sites. I think that's what made the web so popular—it was open source. So I had to go look up the code for an en-dash the other day, but just now I got the code for an em-dash which is supposed to be just a little bit longer—hmmm, doesn't seem much different.

Popcorn in a big way

2004-10-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

I use a hot air popper to make popcorn for snacking on down in the basement, but the two grocery store alternatives just weren't cutting it. The generic Safeway brand tended to have a lot of blackened kernels that tasted like sand when popped, and the name brand container was about $3 for a little more than a pound.

It occurred to me that Sams club might have something, so Zak and I went to check it out. They do have popcorn in a bag. A big bag.

I wonder how long its going to take me to eat 50# of popcorn.

You've got to be OFF to see the wizard

2004-10-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

As my old friend the Wizard of speed and time used to say:

Its creativity that gets things created

The future is now

2004-10-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Those smart guys over at RAND sat down and thought up what a computer would look like 50 years into the future--50 years AGO! Ok, that was 1954 and here's what they figured we'd be using for our personal computing needs.

I have to agree, Fortran is obsurd, but what the heck is the steering wheel for?

Bump my bumper

2004-10-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Seen on a bumper sticker today:

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

So what is he saying exactly?

Taking things apart

2004-09-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

When most people spend thousands of dollars to buy the latest and greatest computer hardware or other electronics, the first thing they usually do when they get their hands on the box is open it up and start using their new gadget. Not this guy.

After getting a brand new flat screen iMac G5 this guy gets out the screwdrivers. No big surprise, he's done it before.

More great counting

2004-09-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

From Will Wheaton DOT NET:

There are only ten types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Unlike Will, my wife would not think this was funny.

Random quotes

2004-09-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

Andromeda started its season again, but for some stupid reason ABC is not showing it (on either Sunday or Saturday). First it was on at 10:30pm Saturdays, then 11:30pm Sundays, then 11:10, then not at all.

Its now on SciFi, but since I don't have cable or satellite, I have to get it from my friend. Finally got to see it though. Interesting quote from the guest:

There are three kinds of people in this world: people that can count, and people that can't.

Messing with Star Wars

2004-09-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so they finally released Star Wars on DVD. But they had to go and change it again, as if the last bit of changes wasn't bad enough. Just look at what they did:

Original tractor beam control labels

New tractor beam control labels

I mean, couldn't they just leave them in english so we could read them? Maybe somebody out there can read imperial, but it isn't me.

George Lucas doesn't care of course, he just sold $115M worth of DVDs in one day.

[links]
A side by side comparison of changes.

Smart searches

2004-09-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

In the news recently was the crossover of the number of keywords used in the average search. Up to that point, the predominant searches were a single keyword (like car). The big news was that people were starting to use two keywords (like new car). Very exciting for the search business.

I on the other hand tend to write search queries like:

clamped inductive load mosfet driver circuit design

Beautiful engines

2004-09-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

Airplanes engines have always facinated me, because they're designed for an entirely different performance envelope than your usual car engine. Requiring considerable power on a constant basis, optimized for power and low weight, and sometimes they look very cool:

(Click on image for larger version with multiple views.)

From HeBig.org.

Random things to buy on ebay

2004-09-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

If I had more money then sense,

A Pioneer Industrial DVD player
Train track for my O-gauge train set
Welding magnets
Any other welding stuff that looked interesting
A 21cc 2cycle motor (or a couple)
A french horn
Rechargable batteries
A video processor to go with my recordable laserdisk player
Movies
More LEGOs
Toys
Lock kit for Titan locks
Buzz saw
Concrete hammer drill
Stepper motors
RC plane
Telescope

To be continued.

Making history interesting

2004-08-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

Though the greek mythos was boring? You obviously haven't heard of The Myth Man.

Providing homework help and the myth of the month club since 1995.

But then there's consultants

2004-08-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

From Paul Graham's essay: Design and Research

Morale is another reason that it's hard to design something for an unsophisticated user. It's hard to stay interested in something you don't like yourself. To make something good, you have to be thinking, "wow, this is really great," not "what a piece of shit; those fools will love it."

Of course if you're a consultant, that's what you do all day essentially.

Cryptic code of the day.

2004-08-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

map { $_{$1}= $2 if /(\S+) ([^\n]+)/) @arg

The search breaking up the line into the first word ($1), and the rest ($2) isn't to bad; its the cryptic use of the default hash %_. feed it a test case and print out keys %_ for your amusement. Of course none of the hash operators assume the default hash by default, so %_ is pretty worthless as a default. The map also returns the results of the assignment ($2) as a list.

Feel sorry for patfm, his brain hurts now.

Hacking away at the airport express

2004-08-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

From Nanocrew, the people that brought you decss:

I've released JustePort, a tool which lets you stream MPEG4 Apple Lossless files to your AirPort Express.
The stream is encrypted with AES and the AES key is encrypted with RSA.
AirPort Express RSA Public Key, Modulus:
59dE8qLieItsH1WgjrcFRKj6eUWqi+bGLOX1HL3U3GhC/j0Qg90u3sG/1CUtwC 5vOYvfDmFI6oSFXi5ELabWJmT2dKHzBJKa3k9ok+8t9ucRqMd6DZHJ2YCCLlDR KSKv6kDqnw4UwPdpOMXziC/AMj3Z/lUVX1G7WSHCAWKf1zNS1eLvqr+boEjXuB OitnZ/bDzPHrTOZz0Dew0uowxf/+sG+NCK3eQJVxqcaJ/vEHKIVd2M+5qL71yJ Q+87X6oV3eaYvt3zWZYD6z5vYTcrtij2VZ9Zmni/UAaHqn9JdsBWLUEpVviYnh imNVvYFZeCXg/IdTQ+x4IRdiXNv5hEew==
Exponent: AQAB
MD5(JustePort-0.1.tar.gz) = fe13e96751958c6e9d57cce0caa7b17b
Update:
JustePort is not Windows-only. Thanks to mono it runs under GNU/Linux, MacOS X and Windows.

Go guys, go.

Best ending to a movie ever

2004-08-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

Forget the classics, Back to the Future (the original) starts strong, stays strong through the middle, and ends even stronger.

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Passing on culture

2004-08-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

From circa 1959

Could this go on all day and night?
It could you know, and it just might.

If only they'd live there

2004-08-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Lawyers are not happy just ruining the lives of people here on earth. They've decided that its their destiny to set down laws for outer space as well.

Wherever man may go, lawyers are quick to follow, and for some decades now, a forward-thinking cluster of attorneys have their sights set on outer-space.
Space lawyers, however, insist that their immediate purpose is simple: to preserve outer space from the lawless free-for-all that characterized exploration and colonization here on Earth.

Oh yes, we'd be much better with lawyers running the show instead. NOT.

In 1993 three Yemeni brothers filed suit against the United States for trespassing. The property in question? The planet Mars. The brothers claimed to have inherited the planet 3,000 years ago from their ancestors. The US sent attorneys to Yemen to fight the charges.
One space lawyer, Virgilu Pop, has claimed ownership of the sun. Mr. Pop registered his claim over the sun on April 28, 2001, and declared himself not liable for any damage caused by his property.
For some, however, the greatest mystery is what, exactly, space law will accomplish.

From the Christian Science Monitor

A sense of doubt

2004-08-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

So much for chicken for lunch:

When my boyfriend, a world-renowned doctor, gave me the grave news, I took it with the same 70-ton grain of salt with which I accepted his assertion that KFC had to change its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because they used genetically engineered animals with no head and three breasts that scientifically were no longer classifiable as chickens.

Preface to a critism on the Funniest Joke in the World.

Smashing bugs

2004-08-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I sure miss the worn out soles of my old slippers. These new slip on shoes with high performance treds may be great for traction on uneven surfaces, but they're sure a pain for trying to smash bugs. It takes like five or six tries a lot of times just to get them. And some of the things crawling around here in the basement are fast.

Dumb parts people need

2004-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

A great list of parts that people need (mostly racing & bikes), that someone could make some money fabricating:

hollow bolts
front forks
bolt sleaves (1/2")

The trick would be making up the tooling so each of these could be produced with a minimum of labor and wear on the cutting edges. Hmmm, maybe those five lathes at the shop will come in handy.

Without a purpose

2004-07-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

God didn't create anything without a purpose...
but mosquitoes sure come close!

Another point of view

2004-07-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

What Paul Graham thinks of Offering software through ISPs:

Selling Web-based software through ISPs is like selling sushi through vending machines.

Sounds stinky.

An interview with a robot

2004-07-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is billed as an interview, but its really Seth Godin talking to a clueless PR Robot. Pretty amazing that he didn't hang up the phone after the third question.

SETH GODIN: Am I a broken record, yet?

Great google parody

2004-07-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

What google would have looked like in 1960. Think mimeograph.

Brought to you by fury.com, care of Circadian Shift.

Messing with time is a bad idea

2004-07-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

Great line tonight on stargate (unnatural selection):

Colonel ONeill to Thor: What is with you people?!? Time machines are nothing but problems. Even we know that.

Transporting a meme without a license

2004-07-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

The You Are What You Eat Meme:

Today I am "Gatorade Fierce"
Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose, citric acid, salt, sodium citrate and monopotassium phosphate.

Not a significant source of anything except some carbs.

Thats not what I was looking for

2004-07-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

From the AdWords at Web Elements on a page for neon:

Discover our low prices on a new neon
www.carpricesecrets.co

I think we might be out of that

2004-07-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

From World Watch One,

Don Huberts, CEO of Shell Hydrogen, notes: “The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones”

Word of the day.

2004-06-30T00:40:00.000-07:00

Was looking up hard cases for my soon to arrive Treo600 (yes I know the 610 is going to be out soon, I'm not waiting). One guy was asking about thoughts on a case on ebay and another responded: "that case is just fugly!"

Great word.

Why we have scientific notation

2004-06-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

From All about circuits

Take for example the mass of a proton, one of the constituent particles of an atom's nucleus:

Proton mass = 0.00000000000000000000000167 grams

Or, consider the number of electrons passing by a point in a circuit every second with a steady electric current of 1 amp:

1 amp = 6,250,000,000,000,000,000 electrons per second

A lot of zeros, isn't it? Obviously, it can get quite confusing to have to handle so many zero digits in numbers such as this, even with the help of calculators and computers.

More surprises

2004-06-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, crumbs on my plate. Was expecting brownies but they turned out to be bacon bits. Still good, just surprising.

Dumb phone

2004-06-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

I was going to complain how I had (in a fit of infinite boredum) done a Google search on xprise & scaled, so I could read about the up coming launch, but that after a few screenfuls of reading stuff that I had read before, I realized there were no navigation tools to get back to the Sprint menu.

But then it locked up. I had to reboot. Dumb phone.

Smells weird, tastes ok

2004-06-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

I bought some of that generic cerial in a bag from the grocery store. I got crisp n fruity rice, not quite knowing what to expect. Its sort of a cross between fruit loops and rice crispies. But when you open the bag, all you can smell is lemon fresh pledge.

Its just not fair.

2004-06-15T01:03:00.000-07:00

No matter what you do, you are going to irritate someone.

Its just not rational, its just not fair. Welcome to life.

The joys of junk mail.

2004-06-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome, Derek You have 1000 unread messages: Bulk (1000)

Blast from the past

2004-06-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Cute Marie, real cute.

Awful cell services.

2004-06-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have sprint with the data plan. I didn't really expect much from the built in services (email, web, etc.) on my phone, and I haven't been disappointed. One thing that's not too painful to do is to ge the weather forecast. It only takes like four or five button presses. But what I don't understand is if its called the seven day forecast, why does it only show me five days?