Flutterby™! From 2007-12-01 to 2007-12-31

Evil Knievel dead at 67.

Drawings that start out naughty, but aren't (Via).

Keep the cat enclosed Flash game, cute, after three or four games you'll figure it out, so it isn't addictive.

[ related topics: Erotic Games Art & Culture ]

Wow, the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) continues to impress me as the right way to write Windows installers. Even though it seems a little complex and obscure at times, for every little tweak and "wouldn't it be nice if we could ...?" feature, someone's written enough example code to make it easy.

Today's work has already been reduced to testing, and that included quite a while ogling Kelly's new Kindle (I was a skeptic before I saw it, now I'm a fan, although I'm still not sure of the business model), eating tasty pastries, and talking about real estate in Petaluma.

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft ]

My older son pointed me at complexification.net last night and I was transfixed. Click on any of the completed images on the Gallery page, and choose one of the sizes (Small, Medium, Large) of available Applets under the sample image and just.... gape. Son is using these as filters or something in some of the digital artwork he's doing, I don't understand it but I know what I like, and this certainly qualifies. (I am particularly fond of Sand Traveler and Happy Place.)

Yes, this is exactly what's needed: Members of the Austin Police Department apologize for their colleague's actions with a taser during a traffic stop:

"If one person spreads the word that this is how he was treated and got no apology, it's like an infection that would spread," Matt Greer told the American-Statesman's Tony Plohetski. Greer represents the detective rank on the police union board. By now, the facts are fairly well-known: Eugene Snelling, 32, was driving on MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) last Thanksgiving when Cpl. Thomas O'Connor stopped him for going 5 mph over the speed limit.

Video of the stop here. Via. Three cheers for those police officers willing to stand up and remind us that they really are on our side.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement Video ]

For all of the value a Home Owner's Association is supposed to provide, it's amazing how much the existence of one depresses the value of a house...

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

From the folks behind Midwest Teen Sex Show: Abstinence: The condom.

[ related topics: Humor Sexual Culture Pop Culture ]

As my observation about HOAs shows, Charlene and I are looking about a bit. Yesterday we went and gave a place in Petaluma a bit of a look. It's a late 1940s redwood framed single story cottage, it looks like it's been meticulously maintained, nice level yard but out of the floodplane, in the low end for the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is relatively mixed, we're not going to be overrun by young couples with screaming kids, or a whole block full of simultaneous teenagers, but neither are the well-off neighbors going to be dying off in droves. However it hasn't been upgraded.

For the most part this is fine, there may be a bit of dry rot in the bathroom, but we're planning on reworking that anyway, we'd really like to build our own kitchen, the one carpeted area is over hardwood anyway so we can just rent a sander and spend a weekend elsewhere while we let that finish cure... however...

The electrical system is the same one that's been there since 194x, several fuses, at most it's 50A spread over just a few circuits. At the very least this is going to require a new main panel and a bunch of wiring. Does anyone know about upgrading an electrical system? What I'd like is to have a new panel dropped in (should be circa $1500), have that run to the old panel, and then run a drop or two at a time as we get to either needing an upgraded circuit (ie: the workshop in the garage and my computer workstation) or reworking that room.

My concern is that some portion of that might lose the "grandfather" status of the current wiring and we'd be forced to bring the whole house up to code all at once. Since this involves things like two GFI 20A circuits into the kitchen, independent of the lighting (and, I believe the appliances), I'd rather tear that up when we're re-doing the cabinets anyway. Anyone know how such things are handled? And I guess I need to find a friendly electrician in Petaluma...

Oh, and I now totally appreciate the difference between the $85 level and the $15 one... Glad we bought the former.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Dan's Life Real Estate ]

Rafe sums it up:

Some analyst group should do a study estimating the amount of money spent each year coding around bad technology choices imposed by business partnerships and outsourcing. The inefficiencies probably account for 1/3 of the IT jobs world wide.

I think he's optimistic, but damn he nails it.

[ related topics: Software Engineering Economics ]

The Richter Scales: Here Comes Another Bubble, great a capella on current tech issues. And I saw the name and I thought "wait, I think I saw The Richter Scales in the basement of the Edinburgh Castle in SF one evening, went and looked at the roster, and, sure enough, Brian Rosen is in the group, so it must have been them. They were good! (and still are). (Via)

[ related topics: Humor Bay Area Video Richter Scales ]

We just settled on a price for an offer on 10 Mission Drive, Petaluma, CA 94952.

Juggernaut, using Flash to set up a persistent server connection for lower latency web application client/server communications. (Via)

Yes, there's an entry missing. I put something up, then pulled it because I wasn't sure it needed to be announced yet. Apologies to those missing it, more as events warrant.

[ related topics: Privacy ]

Argh. Pardon the geekery, but today's expanding bald spot is brought to you by something causing finder to spew:

Finder[77336] <error>: CGWindowContextCreate: failed to create context delegate.

And

Finder[77336] <error>: Failed to create window context device

hundreds of times a second into my syslog, causing the machine to come to a grinding halt. And I've no idea how to track this.

I'm reviewing the technical aspects of an online safety course. A page is about why MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) are important. The scenerio is: A vendor leaves you a sample of a solvent on your desk without an MSDS. Another employee sees the jar, opens it, and is overtaken by fumes. The emergency responders don't know how to treat the affected person.

And the only response I can think of is: I need to submit this guy to the Darwin Awards. But alas, that is not one of the available answers. It should be.

[ related topics: Humor Work, productivity and environment ]

Plans for a home-made treadle powered scroll-saw

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

Military humor extends even to fabric unit patches, as seen in Wired. Take a look at the whole series.

[ related topics: Humor Weblogs Military ]

Cyclist argues "high wheel bicycle" not a bicycle under California vehicle code for the sake of getting out of having to stop at stop signs:

"It's embarrassing and a pain to be stopped," Krieg said. He argues that because the high-wheeler moves forward through direct pedaling of the front wheel without help from chains, belts or gears, the contraption is not technically a bicycle and therefore exempt from California's vehicle code.

"It's not a vehicle. It's an 'it,' " Krieg said. "It's fallen through all the classifications."

Of course that raises all sorts of other issues, 'cause if he's a pedestrian then he should be on the other side of the street, and...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama California Culture Pedal Power Bicycling ]

For flutterby folks only:

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping Gambling ]

Duncanville Texas, "The Perfect Blend of Family, Community and Business," has outlawed sex clubs in residential areas in response to one. What irks me about this is the proprietors of the club are pitching this as a religious freedom issue:

"It's crazy that they want to force their morality down our throats," said Dawn Burton, 45, a regular guest at the parties. "We're all frustrated."

but if I lived in a neighborhood where someone was regularly throwing hundred plus person parties, and undoubtedly charging admission to them, I think I'd be a little miffed too. Wild raunchy sex parties are fine, filling 50 extra parking spaces every weekend in a residential subdivision isn't.

[ related topics: Privacy Sexual Culture Sociology Law Community ]

Dan Savage's article this week on relationships, sex appeal, changing weight and honesty is worth a read, and if you find yourself skimming it's worth dropping down to the end of the supplemental column to see how it all turned out.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Seattle ]

Dear Lazy Web: I'm at my wit's end. Mac OS/X Leopard server. I didn't install or configure the OS. DirectoryService used. SSH in, "sudo" and similar work for a little while (a minute or two), and then stop working. Similarly, in that time, "ls -al" shows owners of files, afterwards it shows uids.

This is also a PITA because "ssh" and "svn" with an https access scheme also no longer work.

I'd like this fixed overall, but the more annoying local problem is that I can't build a reliable script with the setuid bit that can then do a bunch of ssh and svn operations (in this case, checking out to a testing area, and then deploying the testing area to the live server).

Any OS/X gurus out there know what's killing me here?

[ related topics: Macintosh ]

Alabama debates the repeal of their sex toy ban. Says Rep John Rogers, D-Birmingham:

"A shower head could be considered a sex toy," he said. "It's just bringing the state into the 20th century."

Not everyone is so forward looking:

Dan Ireland, executive director of the Alabama Citizens' Action Program, a Baptist group, said it would oppose any effort to overturn the law.

"Laws are made to protect the public," he said. "Sometimes you have to protect the public against themselves."

Lookout! She's got a vibrator, and she might use it on herself!

[ related topics: Sexual Culture moron Law Current Events ]

A prediction: The heck with "the singularity" and virtual spaces, the future is in bring more functionality into the real world.

What is red, black and gets 30-40mpg? 40+ if drafting? What might turn around at the top of the driveway (untested)? What can feel like a go-cart, but rides like a much nicer car? What has all kinds of gadgets like multiple color LED mood lighting and a speedometer/radio/status-display/?/? the size of a dinner plate?

The red and black Mini Cooper we bought in Atlanta yesterday...

We took a ride in the "S" model, which was a thrill, but it was a potential liability in my hands. The base model we got is still very peppy and a little more practical.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Automobiles ]

This one works better than I expected it would: Gustav Klimt paintings re-enacted with live models (Via).

[ related topics: Erotic Art & Culture ]

The Zombie Robert Heinlein Rises From The Grave Yet Again To Annoy The Politically Correct:

People start writing literary fiction as they tumble through writing programs at Sarah Lawrence or Bennington or Iowa because that's what they're expected to write and they want to impress their professors and fellow students; people start writing science fiction, on the other hand, roughly ten seconds after they set down The Star Beast or Ender's Game or Snow Crash because they get done with the book and think, holy crap, I want to do that. Academia generally wants you to show you can write; science fiction generally wants you to tell a story.

Shamelessly stolen from Columbine.

[ related topics: Books Writing Education ]

I wrote up a few notes On being positive:

It has become fashionable in some circles to call Robert Scoble "a shill". Some of those circles are weblogs I read more religiously than his. ...

Or why I'm trying to replace "X sucks" with something else.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Weblogs ]

Chris had sent a query about going and seeing Enchanted. It had shown up on our radar, and Charlene and I were trying to figure out when we could commit to a trek down to the city, when this Saturday evening we were both drained and had a movie gift card and decided we'd just go see it. Sorry, Chris, really we do want to find more excuses to visit with you.

Enchanted was cute, Alan Menken really lost a great lyricist when Howard Ashman died, and hasn't found a replacement that works nearly as well yet, it was a Disney send-up of Disney princesses in a way that mostly worked, but the main reason I'm mentioning it here is that if she hasn't seen it yet, Nancy must go see this movie, even if Meuon has to drag her there kicking and screaming.

[ related topics: Humor Movies ]

88 lines about 44 fangirls (From Dori's del.icio.us feed).

[ related topics: Humor Technology and Culture ]

I hope Ziffle appreciates this one as much as I do: Immanuel Kant: Wrong for America (via).

[ related topics: Ziffle Philosophy ]

Silly random questions:

1. I've got some "white" LEDs scavenged from some of those solar walk light devices. With 2.4v with internal resistance from a pair of NiMH rechargeables, they're rather yellow. I don't remember how yellow they used to be when they were in the devices, as that's been several years. If I build a charge pump or other circuit to drive them at their full current (and hope I can guess what that current is), are they likely to get more white?
2. Anyone got a line on an LCD controlled with an HD44780 or similar easy-to-use controller that's got big characters, as in 3/4" or larger? I want to prototype a bike computer that's cheaper than some beast with GPS running Linux.
3. When making a rail and stile entrance door, how do you keep water from pooling in the dado in the lower rail, thereby causing rot? Actually, this is probably also a good question for panel doors for kitchen cabinets.
4. Anyone got good examples of architecture in the "anthroposophic" or "Waldorf" style, or perhaps a bit more rounded than that, especially for doors and entryways? I'm thinking like this picture or this one, but I'd like some more ideas for more solid doors.

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Architecture Bicycling ]

Anyone who's followed her weblog over the past few knew this was coming, we just didn't know when. Anita Rowland has died. Sympathies and condolences to Jack, her voice will be missed. Via Bill Humphries, which I would have seen tomorrow, but I just got an email from Laurel Krahn alerting me to it.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Looking at IPv6 migration issues:

We're taking 10 gigabytes of the most popular "adult entertainment" videos from one of the largest subscription websites on the internet, and giving away access to anyone who can connect to it via IPv6. No advertising, no subscriptions, no registration. If you access the site via IPv4, you get a primer on IPv6, instructions on how to set up IPv6 through your ISP, a list of ISPs that support IPv6 natively, and a discussion forum to share tips and troubleshooting. If you access the site via IPv6 you get instant access to "the goods".

(Via Genehack)

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Consumerism and advertising Net Culture ]

Machining porn: Waterjets.org has a whole bunch of waterjet pictures, notable are the concrete block at the bottom of this page, the aluminum palm tree trunk, and bits cut out of X-Boxes.

[ related topics: Photography Machinery Cool Technology ]

Because one of the banes of my life right now is a commercial distributed automated build system that's written in [spit] Java that gives me no end of nightmares, I'm keeping my eyes open for other solutions. Buildbot:

The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most software projects to validate code changes. By automatically rebuilding and testing the tree each time something has changed, build problems are pinpointed quickly, before other developers are inconvenienced by the failure. The guilty developer can be identified and harassed without human intervention. ...

[ related topics: Software Engineering Pedal Power Bicycling ]

A package recently arrived from Meuon containing a Blue Line Innovations PowerCost Monitor, a bottle of absinthe, and a GeekLabs shirt. I haven't really been out of the house recently, so I've been wearing T-shirts rather than button-downs, haven't sipped the absinthe yet, but I went out and installed the power cost monitor within a few hours of getting the box. Here are some preliminary notes and pictures on the Blue Line PowerCost Monitor, the one thing it's missing right now is a data download, but it's pretty cool.

[ related topics: Cool Technology Energy Monitoring ]

QOTD, user iknownuttin on /.:

"Sci-fi novelist William Gibson has given up trying to predict the future -- because he says it's become far too difficult.

I find it impossible. I guess that's why I can't get a job:

Interviewer: "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

Me: "If I knew what was happening in 5 years, I'd be a billionaire and NOT interviewing for some dipshit wage slave job! And maybe, if I actually knew, I'd be committing suicide for my dismal future of: commuting at least an hour in traffic one way each day, having to put up asinine reviews that are geared to make me fail, watching CEOs who get fired leave with tens of millions of dollars in severance while, the rest of us watch our jobs go overseas,and ... oh fuck it!"

[ related topics: Quotes Work, productivity and environment ]

Awww, man, how come we don't get any politicians like this? I'd vote for him: Australian politician says "always wear clean underwear", and should know...

"If you ever get an offer to go drinking with Icelandic whalers and Canadian crab fishermen, take them up on it," he said.

"Two important lessons out of life from that: don't let anyone handcuff you to a post and make sure you always wear clean underwear," he added.

[ related topics: Politics Clothing ]

I was sure I'd already said this, but apparently various real estate folks haven't got the message yet: Pouring wood chips around the house is only a substitute for real landscaping if you don't run the pieces of bark up into the siding and decks and other wood.

If you do, then the informed buyer will look at the property and see all the work they have to do to shovel that dumptruck's worth of fill out in order to protect the structure.

Or perhaps the problem is lack of informed buyers?

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

Giggle: "Does anyone order the "Strange Flavour of inside Freasure?""

[ related topics: Humor Food ]

The RP Campaign Flies toward victory

A Marin IJ list of houses going all out with lights for the holidays.

[ related topics: Bay Area Real Estate ]

Dear Rockers, a web site devoted to fans thanking musicians for their work, mostly in the form of cash and apologies for piracy.

[ related topics: Humor Music ]

Jay linked to the 5 Men and a Limo Wikipedia article, a promo film for the 1997 Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards featuring voiceover artists Don LaFontaine, John Leader, Nick Tate, Mark Elliot, and Al Chalk. If you're into the movie biz or the subtleties of voiceovers, it's worth a watch and a few giggles, but you want to see it with the best audio quality possible. Here's the best audio version of 5 Men and a Limo on YouTube I could find.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Movies Art & Culture ]

I just bought a new laptop: HP ZD9620, Dual AMD's 2gb of ram, 240gb HD's.. so that I had enough ram and HD space to do some server-style computing, VMware sessions, etc.. Installed Ubuntu 7.10 desktop, LAMP server, vmware, etc on the 2nd drive. No real issues, everything installed and works well. Ubuntu Linux just works and as Dan has said; gets out of your way. This machine is fast and works well.

This morning I'm trying to use it in Vista mode just so I can run MSIE 7.0 under WinVista. Frustrating. It takes a while for Norton to die (Why bother, even with it on, I can command line FTP a few files up and down from a server before it pops up to block things, and often it doesn't even if you say 'yes'), it takes a while for all the desktop widgets to load (I'll remove them later).. and then the HP AnnoyWare starts in, buy maintenance/support, total care advisor crapware.. welcome screens, yahoo toolbar wants updating.. yada.. yada.. yada.. WinVista's (as normally installed by OEM's) personality is Whining, Complaining, Needy...

I finally get it functioning as a web browser, start doing work, and as I glance away it shuts down to install freshly downloaded updates. Which is did Friday and Saturday as well. Only now.. I have enough time to make this blog post waiting for it to do whatever it thinks it needs to do.

I wish Ralph Nader would do a sequel: "Unsafe at Any Speed: Vista"

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs Open Source Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Heinlein ]

A bunch of folks have been linking to this New Yorker article about how checklists are saving lives in ICUs and medicine in general, I thought the timing was interesting, because I saw that at the same time that I saw a bunch of mistakes at Rhode Island Hospital. What makes an institution, be that a business or another organization, more valuable than the contributions of the individuals in it, is the sets of procedures and documentation and the culture builds up around those. That's also what makes it less valuable.

[ related topics: Health Sociology ]

I've currently got a Belkin router and a Linksys wireless network adapter. The router needs rebooting at least once a day, and dies at the most inopportune times. The wireless box also seems to be developing flakies (although that's been in service for years and years). The last few networking products I've bought have been similar lockup problems and what-not.

So, I need a new router and wireless access device. CompUSA is in the process of going out of business, although their "up to 20% off" means "less than 10% off on anything you'd actually want", but I dropped in there today and couldn't tell the difference between the $50 and the $90 Linksys boxes, let alone try to decide between devices.

I just want something I can plug in and forget about. Any suggestions?

[ related topics: Wireless ]

I'm not sure what it says, but this chart attached to this article about the Marin coroner pushing for a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge caught my eye. That looks like a tremendous jump(sorry) up both in successes(?) and in people stopped in the attempt, this year. I'm generally against such a barrier, but the coroner, Ken Holmes, plays the fence(sorry again) very well:

"There are an awful lot of people who take their lives for very good reasons, and I would never quarrel with them. I would probably duplicate them if I was in the same circumstance,"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area Graphics ]

It's time to get encryption working. Anyone out there using PGP-MIME or S-MIME successfully who'd be okay with me using you as a test subject?

[ related topics: Cryptography ]

The 12 Days Of Christmas (For the politically correct), God Rest Ye Unitarians, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men.

And if you were waiting for a holiday card from us, yes, they're late, our excuse is that we were waiting to make sure that something would come through, it looks like it has.

[ related topics: Religion Humor ]

Just gave our thirty days notice, we're in escrow on a house in Petaluma. Yeah, real estate is in a bubble, but we think we've got a reasonable deal, it's a place we can plan on living in for decades to come, and if this housing thing further settles itself out via inflation (as I expect), having the bank hold that money with fixed interest seems like a good idea. And if prices deflate, well, we're not buying this as an investment, we want a nest, and the overall price is such that we won't be house poor.

Now comes the hard part...

[ related topics: Dan's Life Real Estate ]

Lane Hartwell: My statement regarding the Richter Scales "Here comes another bubble" video dispute:

Photography is my livelihood. It's how I pay my bills. I'm not treating the band any differently than any other group that uses my work without my permission.

I linked to Here Comes Another Bubble, this link comes courtesy of M. Kelley.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Photography Copyright/Trademark Richter Scales ]

In preparation for the move, I've started looking at culling the bookshelf yet again, and I realized there are some books there I haven't read yet. One was Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar, which, amusingly, anticipates Steve Jobs by decades: one of the places/characters (as much as Brautigan has characters) is "iDEATH".

[ related topics: Apple Computer Humor Books ]

Woman accused of groping Santa:

"The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted," police Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said of the weekend complaint.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

Hey, all, it looks like Orkut has been compromised, I'm getting identical messages in some other language from various people in my scrap book. If you have any personal data there, it seems like it's time to cut and clear out now.

Gamers Are Clever Freaks, or how WoW arena players are figuring out how to optimize the reward system. As I said in the comments, it turns out that MMORPG players are good at optimizing arbitrary rule systems: who knew?

Following up on yesterday's comment about gamers, here's the much-linked Best Buy Bodhisattva and a MetaFilter comment about a pro gamer picking up and doing something similar.

The resulting comments are interesting, I'm noticing two camps. The first comments on the kid's lack of interaction with all of the awed onlookers, but if you were looking for an attention whore you should look to professional sports or "People" magazine, he was doing what he was doing for himself. The second is about putting all of those neurons into a video game, and my reaction to that is split between "what else has your culture given him to emulate in a quest for perfection" and "this is the future, how can we put the side effects of those skills to use"?

[ related topics: Games Sociology ]

To those people whining about Time Magazine choosing Vladimir Putin as "person of the year", I wish to point out that the little Bush has been so named twice, as have Newt Gingrich, the Ayatollah Sayid Ruhullah Musawi Khomeini, and many other reprehensible would-be dictators and peddlers of evil. It's a recognition of influence, not an honor. Or at least it should be viewed as such.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Top Ten Worst Christmas Cracker Jokes Ever:

What is Santa's favourite pizza?

One that's deep pan, crisp and even.

Found off of the Archbishop says nativity 'a legend' article that Danger West had a link to.

[ related topics: Religion Humor ]

Nanosolar ships its first panels, claiming that they can sell them profitably at a dollar a watt (via).

[ related topics: Cool Technology ]

The good news? The mortgage guy came through way faster than anticipated with the loan. The bad news? Trying to get everyone else on board, during the holiday season, to close before the end of the year.

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

Howl! Santa does a recording session, "that's not how I wrote it...". (From Copyranter from Make The Logo Bigger).

Charlene and I went up to Petaluma today to meet our realtor, who was doing his walkthrough of the house ("meet our realtor" a week from (hopefully) close of escrow... Redfin rawks and Ernesto and Angela, our contacts there, have been awesome in this process). Charlene's off to Fresno, we'd parked her car in San Rafael, and on the way back down my clutch went haywire and we managed somehow to get into the commuter lot under 101 with just one manually synchronized shift and a whole lotta luck with the 3 lights on the central San Rafael exit to the under-the-101 parking. The tow truck guy bitched me out for my automotive ignorance and had me drop some brake fluid in a little plastic cup that was tucked away up under the hood, apparently my clutch cylinder had run dry, I nursed it home, and on Monday the last folks to do work on the car are gonna get an earful.

And I missed getting together with Chris and friends in the city. Damn.

Just took a walk and ran into John who told me another set of neighbors are having a holiday party, so I'm gonna go crash that.

[ related topics: Humor Dan's Life Movies Bay Area Automobiles Real Estate ]

Study reveals why monkeys shout during sex:

Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.

Without these yells, male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) almost never ejaculated, scientists found.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Hell yeah: 11 year old builds mousetrap based booby trap to catch lunch money thieves.

Harry drew on know-how acquired from hours spent glued to the History Channel, his favourite program being a documentary about Vietcong-made traps in the Vietnam War.

Via

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Yesterday we bundled up the trampoline and dropped it on Forest, and while we were there he showed me Portal, and I got to see what people are raving about. You wake up in the Aperture Science Center, where a voice informs you that you are to be tested. You're given a device with two triggers which creates portals where you point it (subject to various limitations on surfaces), go into one portal, come out the other portal, maintaining speed. This plays all sorts of great mind-games with the standard first person in a maze sort of thinking.

But while playing with your 3d reasoning skills, it's also presenting a hilarious storyline, riffing on all the bureaucracy and idiocy that you'd imagine accompanies the creation of standardized tests, along with some witty digs at various computer game genres. I may have to get it just so I can find out what happens after level 18. And any game in which the gun turrets have a cutesy female voice wins just based on that.

I also clearly now need to go see the original game from which this was derived, Narbacular Drop.

Portal is one of those games that I want to grab people and show because it demonstrates that games don't have to be about killing things (well, except for your... no, that'd be a spoiler), that they can stretch our thinking in interesting ways, and that they can be witty satire.

[ related topics: Games Graphics Guns ]

Dark Bollards, Dangerous Bollards, or what you can do about those posts designed to keep motor vehicles off of multi-use paths, but are often placed in ways that create the maximum hazard to bicycles and bicyclists, especially those who might be towing small family members in a trailer.

Try to present your request calmly and rationally, even though you're dealing with a situation that could have killed you or your children. ...

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

From CartoTalk:

I think land developers should be charged $100,000US per letter in their street names. Maybe they will think twice about naming their stupid little courts with extra long names.

This is from someone who has to figure out how to label street names on large-scale maps. An interesting aside from a firefighter in the conversation:

For firefighters turning out for an alarm at 0300 hrs, trying to recall if Shandalay Lane runs off of Shandalay Court or Shandalay Terrace (which may happen to be on the other side of the city) is a headache.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Maps and Mapping Real Estate ]

Fascinating post and ensuing discussion: Philip Greenspun asks why airplanes have gotten so expensive relative to family income.

[ related topics: Aviation Economics ]

Just got back from "the signing" (wasn't that a Jack Nicholson movie?) and gave the final wiring instructions. On the way home Charlene referred to "signing books", which was shortly corrected to papers, but, yeah, it was like that. If everything goes as planned we end up owing a lot of money backed by an asset with sinking fungibility, by this time Friday.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Real Estate ]

More evidence that Alexander Graham Bell stole the telephone idea:

In "The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret," journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell - aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner - got an improper peek at patent documents Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with filing first.

Shulman believes the smoking gun is Bell's lab notebook, which was restricted by Bell's family until 1976, then digitized and made widely available in 1999.

My impression was that this was already pretty much concluded, but here's more evidence. Via.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Drugs Sociology Journalism and Media Guns Phreaking ]

Interesting: The Eye-Fi is a 2 mega gigabyte SD card with WiFi capabilities that automatically uploads. Review of the Eye-Fi here.

[ related topics: Wireless Photography Cool Technology ]

Further evidence that AT&T is an incompetent monopoly: I'm calling to get my DSL set up, we decide that, in fact, it's cheaper if I get a phone line along with the DSL, the guy walks me through the bundle portion of the script in which he tells me that he can give us a great deal where they get our cell phone (already with AT&T), our DSL and our phone line all on the same bill for only $40-50 more per month than I'm already paying, if only I'll give them access to my long-distance records for marketing purposes.

I say "Uhhh... that doesn't sound like a good deal to me." He says "yeah, me neither, but I have to read the script."

[ related topics: Wireless broadband Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

Just wanted to point out this picture of a train around a Christmas tree because that looks like an American Flyer S-gauge, which is a slightly more rare thing than the usual Lionel O-gauge train. And because the train I've got from my Dad's childhood is remarkably similar.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Trains ]

Via CartoTalk: A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

[ related topics: Language Furniture ]

Yeah, by now it's ancient and you've seen it all already, but: some interesting carved pencil art, and a cute pencil sharpener.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

I have been meaning to watch Dan Hill: The Well Tempered Personal Environment which was linked to from here and purportedly expands on the desire I've had recently to put a little watt meter on everything.

"For years U.S. eavesdroppers could read encrypted messages without the slightest difficulty..." because they had a back door in Crypto AG machines, but Crypto AG is a swiss company that everyone trusted. A stellar example of why your crypto and voting devices all need to be both open source and developed in an open collaborative environment. (Via)

[ related topics: Free Software Cryptography ]

We've houseguests this weekend, one of whom is an 8th grader who's learning to play guitar and into metal. So last night while the rest of the crowd was playing Scrabble he refreshed me on the chords and I tried to teach him as much as I remembered of Stairway To Heaven, and then, in honor of cleaning out stuff we never use for the impending move, raided the CD collection for stuff he might like that I don't listen to any more. The complete Led Zeppelin, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and I put on a few others that I'm keeping but thought he should hear, like Leo Kottke and Michael Klapholz. One of the things I found interesting was trying to figure out some old riffs that were deeply ingrained in my memories but I couldn't place exactly, so I was saying things like "I think this from that Yes song, you know..." and he said "wait, there was a band called 'Yes'?".

Truly a "was Paul McCartney ever in a band before Wings?" moment.

This morning, Elf pointed to this video of a 10 year old playing all 3 parts to "Carry On", in the context of talking about generations and music, and as soon as the gang is up and about I'm going to show it to them.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Music Scrabble Video Michael Klapholz ]

First, a laugh, yep, that's me on a snowboard last weekend with Nancy and chilluns at Cataloochee in S. Carolina. Had a blast, and I did pretty well for an old geek for the first time. Still, I hopefully evoked a few laughs (I laughed, MOST of the times I fell).

The invite: We are having a party, you are invited: Saturday night, January 5th at Mike and Nancy's in Chattanooga.

[ related topics: Photography Chattanooga Sports ]

Californians can only use cell phones while driving if they're using a hands-free device, starting tomorrow in July.

[ related topics: Wireless California Culture Automobiles ]