So, over the years I've gotten a lot of grief for enjoying Sonic games. I played the genesis sonics and apparently that's okay, but Sonic Adventure? No, apparently that's synonymous with liking child molestation... For the record, i don't. Technically, Tails is an adult by now anyways. He was 8 when he was introduced in '92 so that makes him 26. Also, Sonic was 15 at the time, so their relationship is within social norms.
Anyways, i haven't really picked up a sonic game with any gusto since Sonic Adventure 2. Sega kinda got all weird and kept trying to put Sonic where he doesn't really belong. RPG type settings and what not. Unlike Mario, the 3D realm was not kind to Sonic. Sonic Rush for the DS was a breath of fresh air so I think Sega might be waking up from it's drug induced stupor. Now, I know for sure...
Sonic 4!!
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:51:32 +0000
So I may have mentioned that my mom went under the knife this week(nothing too serious if you weren't in the loop). What I may not have mentioned is that she'll be convalescing under my care. Can you imagine a worse fate?
To tend to people you need two things:
- Empathy - Which I've never had
- Compassion - What little I ever possessed has drained out of me over the last 4-5 years.
This should be amusing.
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:19:37 +0000
So i was at the Fiddler's Hearth the other night. If you didn't know, it's an Irish pub, downtown South Bend. Anyways, i was there with a few friends and we ordered some food and drink and it was merry.
One thing that did catch my eye was an item in the dessert section of the menu. It was called the Tipsy Laird. I can't recall exactly what was in it, but it did say that it was not for children.
This of course gave me a lovely mental image of zenmasterzeno getting drunk and making lewd comments and/or being obscene. Definitely not for children. Only wish i would have taken a picture...
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:18:22 +0000
Backing up an ailing 1TB device is an incredibly slow, tedious process.
Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:45:26 +0000
Ok I may have a new favorite LRR video, it reminds me of BKN. Nate, Adam, and no doubt even Bob(if he's still alive) can confirm that I have gone on actual tirades like this. Since it reminds me of BKN it is clearly NSFW, but I give unto you
Son of a Bitch.
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:59:32 +0000
So, I purchased some supplies from a tactical wholesaler online. When my shiny new equipment arrived there was a promotional ballpoint pen and two of these:
Yeah, that's a camouflaged dinner mint. I mean, it makes perfect sense, right? I aim to secret these all about my apartment, for any time I need to covertly freshen my breath.
Even counting stuff from the net bubble days, this still goes down as the weirdest throw-in I've gotten with a package.
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:56:12 +0000
On Monday I was tidying up my apartment when I found an old notebook. It was filled with my best cursive, and full of overwrought text about women that haven't been in my life in years. I figure everyone has something embarrassing like this lying around, but I'm guessing they don't have what filled the pages between the drivel... Odes to actual pens. From the Bic Roundstick, to the flowing Pilot G2, to my most beloved Sanford Papermate Write Bros.
I think this is hilarious. For someone who doesn't spend a lot of time with paper I certainly have a misplaced love for pens.
Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:39:55 +0000
I saw Avatar 3D over the weekend and then of course did a big of a follow up on the internet so I know a bit more than the usual person so i can sound smart (or at least non-uninformed) when talking about it since everyone is going to see it.
James Cameron made the right move by putting it off till the technology was good enough to do it. The visuals are amazing and probably the best reason to go see it. It definitely would have flopped if it would have came out in '99... Fox got a bit stingy on the framerate, 24 fps, and Cameron said he wanted it higher to reduce the strobing effect that happens with 3D. It was right on the money with that one since there was some strobing but it didn't deter too much from the experience. The story is "Poccahantis in Space" or "Dances with Wolves in Space" (but with a happier ending) but I enjoyed it.
Fun fact: Wes Studi who plays the chief of the Na'vi tribe was also in Dances with Wolves. Shocking, i know.
They used a new kind of motion capture for the facial expressions too. It makes the emotions and expressions a lot more natural but since the Na'vi are blue and a bit feline, the "uncanny valley" effect only shows up every once and awhile.
All in all, i'm excited to see what they do with it in the sequel and it's nice to see a sci-fi film reach a broad audience. That probably hasn't happened on this kind of scale since Star Wars.
Also, who wouldn't like to watch mechs battling aliens? Plus Ripley's back! Not really, but Weaver's character has the same kind of attitude.
Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:11:46 +0000
All the special radio broadcasts for MLK day have reminded me of something really important: I still sincerely despise choral music.
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:32:03 +0000
I spend a lot of time at work with multiple SSH sessions open on my desktop. Unfortunately, I have to use a Windows client as my primary workstation. For years, I've been using
PuTTY as my primary SSH client. I really like PuTTY because it works better than anything else I've ever used, and it's free. I only have two complaints about the software.
- No tabbed interface.
- You have to reopen putty every time you want to connect to a different saved session.
Fortunately, someone else was just as irritated by these two shortcomings and a WHOLE lot more talented than I. I don't know the name of the person who wrote it, but
PuTTY Connection Manager is pretty darned cool!
PCM is effectively a wrapper program or client add-in that gives you a tabbed interface, the ability to manage your PuTTY connections in a database, send the same command to multiple connections and a host of other things. Heck, it even lets you see all of your saved PuTTY connections in a convenient side bar view so you don't have to reopen PuTTY every time you want to make a connection. While the documentation is a bit lacking, the application is pretty easy to figure out.
If you spend a lot of time working in PuTTY sessions I highly recommend you check out PCM.
Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:26:33 +0000
Low Gap Trail is supposedly one of the gems of the Morgan Monroe State Forest, but today it was really just a 12 mile slog through Indiana clay mud. It might even be really pretty; but I wouldn't know, I was watching where my feet went most of the time.
I've been flirting with the Tecumseh Trail, MMSF to HNF in Lawrence Co, for a while now. A few more tough hikes like this one and I'll be quite ready for our hot date in May.
Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:37:44 +0000
I have a knife I use exclusively for killing singing clergymen. I call it the decator.
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:04:11 +0000
I just heard a pounding noise from the other room. Like a good mother, rather than going to look, I yelled, "What are you doing?"
Keira yelled back, "Nothing."
"It doesn't sound like nothing."
"Well, we aren't doing anything to break the house."
"Okay. Well, don't break each other either."
"Okay. We won't."
Need parenting lessons? I offer them for a small fee...
Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:13:50 +0000
They are supposed to be slippers, so they are warm! The hard soles tell me I can wear them wherever I want!
On clearance at Target for $11.88. I love you, Target!
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:10:23 +0000
Thanks for the inspiration,
Sarcastic Mom!
Keira made crowns for us. They were the inverse cut-out from her construction paper when she made butterflies for us.
What do the children of a professional educator do during their free time? I would like to note that both of those DSs
are were at one time mine, and YES, the boy is playing the pink one...
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:57:47 +0000
The Gingerbread House THIS week.
We left the dogs alone with it for too long!
Lego Rock Band!
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:55:16 +0000
In an attempt to SLOW DOWN and remember what life is all about, I'm joining
Sarcastic Mom's Weekly Winners photo gallery. I really enjoy writing in my blog, and I really enjoy taking pictures, but when I have a minute to sit down, I think of it as more of a chore than a hobby. I don't want it to be that way!
Here are my weekly winners:
The first day of Christmas break.
We made the Gingerbread House on the second day of break!
Decorating cookies for Santa. Everyone except for Keira gave up after about 3 cookies. She stayed at the counter by herself for about an hour, making sure every one of them was perfect.
Keira in her new Snuggie!
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:55:16 +0000
I have recently finished reading
Atonement by Ian McEwan. Like most books I read, I tried not to find out anything about the plot or characters before reading it, which was great in this case, but it really through me for a loop when I found out the reason for the title. I hadn't expected Briony to be the one atoning. I have been digesting the story for a few days, trying to figure out how to summarize it. The plot is somewhat simple, but it seems complex when I try to put it into words!
After finishing the book, I watched the movie. While the movie follows the book almost exactly, I enjoyed the book much more. The book allows the reader to know the thoughts and feelings of the characters, which is lost in the movie. I LOVED Briony (what a fantastic name!) in the book; I didn't really connect with her on the screen. I didn't really feel a connection with any of the characters in the movie. From reading the novel, I knew the history of Robbie and Cecilia's lives, which made their falling in love more realistic and believable in the movie.
The language Ian McEwan uses in the book is beautiful; he is so descriptive and eloquent. It would take me forever to write such "pretty" sentences! Here's one of my favs:
"Briony resisted because she wanted to chase in solitude the faint thrill of possibility she had felt before, the elusive excitement at a prospect she was coming close to defining, at least emotionally." (chapter 3)
Here is what I would've written: "She didn't do it because she was afraid of the truth."
Talk about eloquence! Maybe Ian writes a blog. We would all be better for reading that one!
So, anyway, I enjoyed the movie, but it was mainly because I had already read the book. I have to wonder if I would have liked the movie better if I hadn't read the book, but I kinda feel like I wouldn't have liked the movie at all...
Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:49:49 +0000
Facebook is a creepy place. There's been a sudden burst of exes and old flames looking me up. I don't particularly like my exes in my present. I much prefer thinking about them from time to time, remembering the good days. It's like a cool evening breeze after a hot day. You can savor thoughts and extrapolations of their life trajectories after your split. It leaves a better taste in your mouth than knowing she's a pothead, or
she's a multi-cat spinster.
Familiarity breeds contempt, because knowing is the death of romance. Complete understanding of a subject or a person drains all passion. You can't love what you grok.
P.S.
I was hoping to find a synonym for grok, but nothing else really worked.
Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:34:09 +0000
So, just got back from japan yesterday. It was as expected. Lots of food (Ramen, omu-raisu, suki-yaki, a shitload of raw fish, soba, makizushi, etc.) and boozes (sake, beer, and a smattering of mixed type things). Saw the sites and experienced a little more of the culture which i love like a fanboy.
New year's day? It's basically black friday, shoppingasm. You also go to the temple and find out if you'll have good luck or bad luck for the year. There's verying degrees to your luck. Mine's going to be above average apparently.
Also did the public bath and onsen thing, so lots of japanese penises and adding about 60 or so people to the "seen my penis" column. Largest demographic that's seen my penis? Japanese men. Kinda sad to think that it's always going to be the top spot unless i become a flasher.
Went to the children's science museum where there was a robot exibit for a short time. I saw a Asimo demonstration. It's a lot shorter than i imagined but never the less very cool. The fluidity and balance it has is quite amazing. It kicked a couple of soccer balls into a goal, danced, carried a tray and set it on a table and demonstrated that it could search a room for an object. Very cool.
Another robot that was very interesting was one that did face recognition. It had two lenses in each eye, a wide angle and narrow. it would flick its eyes around and look you straight in the face no matter where you went. The eyes would flick to your position and then the head would follow almost human. again, very cool. Over all, the japanese obession with robots is a good time.
Lots of pictures but need a bit a time to sift through them, so until then i leave you with this video. Question: How far do different tires fly when sent off a ski jump? F-1? A dumptruck tire? Let's find out.
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:12:58 +0000
Well, I think Skyla is still in heat, but Dash has lost interest in her. Whoo hoo! No more whining and scratching at the door to get to her!
The weird part of this story is that Dash still feels amorous, but now it is directed towards Charlie. Charlie is our old, fat, almost crippled, black lab. He has been neutered.
Whenever Dash gets the chance, he is trying to cuddle and lick Charlie's face and ears! It is as if Dash is trying to woo him!
Even more disturbing, I think Sky is still in heat because she keeps...uh...strutting her stuff in Charlie's face.
Charlie has gone from the lump that occupies space to the mac-daddy of our doggy population! Unfortunately for Charlie, he is not enjoying his new status quo. The annoyed look on his face says he misses his alone-time.
Poor Charlie! Hopefully soon the raging hormones will settle down and he can have some peace!
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:47:18 +0000
It is currently mating season in our house, and Josh and I are trying desperately to make sure no puppies get made!
Last Christmas, we inherited Skyla from our neighbor. He couldn't take care of her, and we seem to attract dogs, so Skyla joined our family.
Unfortunately, Skyla had not yet been spade when she came over. The main problem with this is that Dash has not yet been neutered either. Normally, it isn't a problem-neither one is too randy; however, this is not currently the case.
Skyla is in heat, and Dash is more desperate than (insert witty metaphor here-I can't think of one).
We have had to keep Dash in his cage all day and all night. When we let him out to drink and go outside, he goes berserk: chasing, humping, licking, chasing. When he is in his cage, he cries, whines, barks, digs. I don't think he sleeps even. If he does, I'm certain he is dreaming of Skyla!
Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:37:22 +0000
The ampersand, "
&", is a highly stylized merger of the letters "E" and "T". Et, being Latin for "and". The symbol & actually comes from Latin shorthand, and has been in use in the West ever since.
Back in the day when penmanship was diligently taught the ampersand appeared at the end of the alphabet, and took on the meaning of posterior/hindquarters. This may be why when people want to censor text, but still convey low language, they use a string of characters to do so. EG. "Get of my lawn, you &%#@ kids!"
Fun fact: Shorthand characters in Latin are called
Ligatures, and that pretty well ties things up.
Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:53:40 +0000
Weird etymology lesson of the day:
If you have a good sense of humor, you should be a physician. Traditionally humor refers to the ancient understanding of four bodily fluids: Blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy or black bile. Any imbalance in these fluids was thought to be the cause of ailments. In fact, a few fluids are still referred to as 'humors'. The juice in your eyeball for one, it's the vitreous humor.
Humor is only found in the modern sense from the eighteenth century on.
The real gem of all this is a table from HW Fowler's "Modern English Usage", reproduced on
Etymonline.
| device | HUMOR | WIT | SATIRE | SARCASM | INVECTIVE | IRONY | CYNICISM | SARDONIC |
| motive/aim | discovery | throwing light | amendment | inflicting pain | discredit | exclusiveness | self-justification | self-relief |
| province | human nature | words & ideas | morals & manners | faults & foibles | misconduct | statement of facts | morals | adversity |
| method/means | observation | surprise | accentuation | inversion | direct statement | mystification | exposure of nakedness | pessimism |
| audience | the sympathetic | the intelligent | the self-satisfied | victim & bystander | the public | an inner circle | the respectable | the self |
Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:56:48 +0000
Weird etymology lesson of the day:
Cacophony is a most impolite word. It comes to english from the greek root
kakos, meaning bad/evil. Which in turn hails from the proto-indo european
kakka, "to defecate".
Long before the french took to uttering
merd the gauls were saying
cac. Cacophony most directly means the sound of shit.
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:06:52 +0000
Tomorrow is the start of a new decade, as well as a new year. I'm not making any resolutions, but I am going to work on a few things. One of those things I'm going to work on is using this blog more effectively as a learning tool.
Say what?
Yeah, a learning tool.
I'm a big believer in the "see one, do one, teach one method" of learning. With my current role at work, I have to learn a lot of new stuff. Unfortunately, I'm not the best at documenting what I've learned, so when I go back to try and do the same thing again 6 months later I have to relearn it. If I blog about the stuff I'm learning, including writing instructions on how to do it, maybe I will cement the knowledge a bit more. Maybe someone else will find my posts useful as well?
Anyway... Off to a new start and we'll see how this new effort works out.
Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:34:15 +0000
Weird etymology lesson of the day:
The root of
disseminate is semen. I defy you to not think of that the next time you are
spreading the word.
Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:43:09 +0000
Two things.
First: Auto Tech, the shop just down the hill from my apartment, was able to replace my Buick's belt first thing today. It seems none the worse for the wear. The price wasn't bad, either.
Second: The UITS Christmas card is a painted winter scene of our new data center. The new center is a really big deal to us at UITS, but is also a very functional building. It's mostly a subterranean cube with steam billowing out of its massive cooling equipment. It's nice of them to think of us, and pick a scene that matters to us as members of UITS, but it still just kind of looks like a bunker in the snow.
I will now finish the workday, and try to complete yesterday's errands tonight.
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:34:56 +0000
I was starting to wonder where my Season's Beatings were this year, but don't worry I found it.
I've just eased onto 37 heading up to Indy when I lose my power steering and my voltmeter starts to dip. I didn't know for sure what was up, but I knew I was on battery power for my limp back home.
So, my serpentine belt is completely shredded. Awesome. Here's hoping I didn't wreck anything else nursing the car back.
Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:30:59 +0000
The squat rack and I are fighting... he's winning. My legs are so sore that when I perambulate I don't so much walk as just fall toward a destination.
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:58:45 +0000
So, working on this PIE export project I had to wade into the To-Do section to write documentation. I now recall why I never go rooting around in there. When my predecessor wrote it he seriously jacked-up all the editing tools.
This section is so messed up it doesn't just make me angry, it makes me fucking furious. This cat messed things up this badly, and then moved on up in the organization. And people still love the guy.
So, I've just got to go through and fix it all up, probably rewrite it from scratch. This adds days to something I could have been done with already, and no one will ever appreciate it because it'll have always "just works" for them.
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:03:31 +0000
Until about 20 minutes ago I thought it was Wednesday. This week just got a lot longer.
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:44:56 +0000
I went hiking at Leonard Springs, a park just outside of Bloomington. I'd never heard of it until yesterday, I wish I had sooner. It's gorgeous, and it'll be accessible in the winter. The springs actually fed the original reservoir, but went out of service in the 40's when Griffy Lake came around.
Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:28:58 +0000
I just downloaded an app for my iPhone that let's me update from my phone.
Maybe that'll make me more motivated to blog. Let's see!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:31:10 +0000
Last night I had a relapse. Many of you know about my long struggle with my Food & Shelter addiction. Last night I caved, and went on a bender. I had the thickest pork chop I've ever seen along with green beans and a whole pot of mashed potatoes.
I spent the evening groaning, by turns in ecstasy and agony, from my carbohydrate and fat induced state.
Until I forget how to cook I'll remain powerless to overcome this disease.
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:03:32 +0000
Jason: Is it raining?
Matt: It is, but I have a hat; and you have a... a...
Jason: Hood?
Matt: I was going to say disdain for the physical world, but that's also true.
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:44:00 +0000
Go grab your gym clothes, really, grab them. Get a great big lungful. Do they reek? Mine do, with the musky odor of success. Of getting off my ass and getting it done.
Since July I've dropped a stone, I'm well on my way for a second. And, though you'll never see them, my legs are quite nicely cut.
So, why the sudden fitness bug? That's easy. I watched the all around strongest man I've ever known, my father, lose a lengthy fight with cancer. Parts of him just wasted away until he was wheelchair bound, then bedridden, and then I watched him rattle his last uncomfortable breath. No matter how well you live Death is nipping at your heels, I just want to give the bastard a real fight when he makes himself known.
Here's to another five months of fighting.
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:34:55 +0000
Drain Opener labels: Lyes, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:02:16 +0000
I bought a couch at Furniture Exchange today, which means I've got two recliners that could use a new home. Anybody need a Lay-Z-Boy, or even better two?
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:16:28 +0000
So I caught an episode of Dollhouse that my DVR had trawled. Dollhouse isn't a show it's a SciFi refugee camp. A lot of BSG veterans, but now people from The Invisible Man(Vincent Ventresca) and the Terminator universe(Summer Glau) are bleeding in. I full well expect to see people from Andromeda before the season is out.
Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:17:45 +0000
So, i'm bored and i feel like imparting some useless, yet funny japanese!
The japanese language is funny because it has a word for almost anything, but usually it's only one word, so creatively expressing yourself usually falls flat. Instead, i find joy in the direct translations of some of these words.
For example, from watching anime a few of you might have picked up on the explicative, 'kuso'. It's translation is basically crap or shit depending on how vulgar you want to take it. The literal translation is 'animal droppings' so it could be interpreted as 'horseshit' if you so choose. This is just a bit of background before we get into the good stuff.
You know the dried crap you get in the corner of your eyes? What do you call them? Eye boogers? Eye crusties? Anyway you slice it, there isn't a specific word for it. In Japanese? Well, it's 'mekuso'. 'me' (pronounced may) translates directly as eye, so you could directly translate this into 'eye shit' or 'eye droppings' or maybe even 'eye feces'
Ah! But the fun doesn't stop. Japanese is quite practical and if it works for one thing, it can be used for similar things. There is also 'hanakuso' and 'mimikuso'
Let's look at 'hanakuso'. 'hana' means nose, so you get 'eye shit'. This is only used for boogers though. If you want to talk about snot, you must use 'hanamizu' or directly translated, 'nose water'.
So, that leaves us with 'mimikuso'. What other secretion do we have that comes from an orifice in the head? Why the ear! 'mimi' (pronounced me-me) means ear, so you also have 'ear shit'.
We'll save bodily functions from the lower half for another day...
So, there you have it! Aren't you glad you can talk about your eye crusties, boogers, snot and earwax?
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:19:13 +0000
I was nearly late for my father's funeral at 10am... I'm just not a
mourning person. *rimshot*
Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:28:04 +0000
So, I had an awesome dream last night.
It started out with Jason, Nate, and I plus Matthew and some others. We were just shootin' the shit and playing around with a drum machine program. This is because i spend hours last night doing drum patterns for our songs, so drum beats were definitely on the brain.
It gets better though. Turns out Nate was a collector of old cars from the 20s and 30s. A Dusenburg, a Studebaker, and two others i can't remember. Needless to say, Jason and I got excited. I then proposed a plan where we don our suits, complete with fedoras, and head out in the Studebaker. Where would we be going? Why the South Side Soda shop in Goshen, IN for a bite to eat! Very enjoyable. Gotta keep it in the area, yeah?
Seriously don't know where that came from. I haven't thought about or discussed those cars in months, and only with Jason, so why now? Perhaps it's a sign.... Either Nate has to get a Studebaker or I need to got eat at the South Side Soda Shop. Wonder which one will come true first?
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:01:06 +0000
Sad news, folks. On Tuesday around 1:30pm I got a call that my father only had 12 to 24 hours left, so I rushed out to the house. Just before midnight he passed away.
For most of you this is probably the first you've heard of it. I'm sorry, I'm just awful personal about my personal life.
That marked the end of a long fight with cancer. One that started in the winter as small cell lung cancer, which we thought we might have licked by June. And it did get licked, but not before it had spread to his hip in an untreatable way. The last few months were a pretty rapid decline, but in that time he had the chance to put his affairs in order. Through the saint-like devotion of my mother and my sister he was able to spend his last days in his own home, which counts for more than you might think.
I've got a lot to say on the subject, but I haven't the heart to say it. I will say it's a long and unpleasant way to check out, so if someone you care about smokes, give `em shit every time the decide to pound a coffin nail.
Odds are I won't be at peak performance for the next little bit, so I don't particularly want your sympathies or condolences, your understanding will do quite nicely. Thanks.
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:08:10 +0000
PIE, you just made me literally HEADDESK. Well done.
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:24:27 +0000
Lowly females pick mediocre mates. Thanks, science, the rest of us hadn't put that together yet.
Even Ayn Rand beat you to the punch on that one, there a quote to the effect
"Tell me what someone finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me who they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of their self.'
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:31:43 +0000
So, for some reason I really like the time-loop concept a la Groundhog Day and the easiest format do this is sci-fi television right? Well, I got bored and started collecting them. I think my favorite is the SG-1 one where they start hitting golf balls through the stargate. A drive that's light years long? Awesome. So far I've found one for the X-files, SG-1, Andromeda, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: TNG and Eureka. I think we should have a time-loop funfest on February 2nd! What do guys think?
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:15:47 +0000
Nature is full of patterns that repeat themselves in more than one place. I dedicate a few brain cycles to this stuff every week. This week I was thinking about the nature of human relationships, and what could be complex enough to mirror these interactions. My conclusion? Orbital Mechanics. Am I right?
I pooled my experiences with, and observations of, healthy and unhealthy relationships and found that stable relationships are similar to LaGrange Points.
A LaGrange Point is a location when you have three orbiting bodies. Think the Sun, the Earth, and a satellite. There are five places where you can put the satellite relative to the other bodies where it will have a “fixed” view of the other two bodies.
Image from Wikipedia
In my model the Sun would be replaced by the relationship, Earth is replaced by the other person, and and the satellite describes your orbit in the system.
Which LaGrange point you are in also determines what type of a relationship you're in.
L1 – New Relationship, all the bodies are in sharp view, but only one part at a time
L2 – Infatuation, the other person obscures all other objects at work
L3 – Trophy Marriage, view is dominated by the relationship, and what it provides
L4 & L5 – Golden Anniversary, provides the best view and understanding of the system
All other orbits have cyclical vacillations, and are fraught with risks of decay, collision, or even escape trajectories.
I hear you thinking “But Jason, relationships change.” Ah, of course they do! How do they change? Nearly all factors in a relationship come down to a mix of three areas: Emotional, Physical, and Practical. You can treat each of these as pitch, yaw, and roll, respectively. Then through the often counterintuitive maneuvering of Orbital Mechanics you can navigate to where you want to be.
Who needs to be lucky in love when you have science!?
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:16:09 +0000
So, I found a new spectacular bug in the app I work on. We'd been having trouble with the payroll system, which is used to interface our (MSSQL based) system with our HR departments (Oracle) system. In a linchpin query where our app pulls information from HR's system my predecessor made an error by comparing strings of dates rather than the dates themselves.
If I hadn't been working on a related problem with the system I would never have caught this. It would have blown-up in our faces.
Go me.
Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:17:12 +0000
A few weeks ago I bought a commodity Belkin wireless router, it does much of the same things my hot-rod m0n0wall setup did, and does it using almost no power. Which freed up my Optiplex GX240. Which brings us to this weekend's project.
I've always wanted a netboot server on my network, so I can load up diagnostic tools, backup utilities, and installation media without hunting for and burning discs. So I set it up as a boot server, right now it'll boot MemTest, Clonezilla, and an Ubuntu Jaunty installer. I'm hopeful to include FreeDOS and BartPE for those hard to lick problems in the Windows central world.
So, I'll actually spend Labor Day not working. Woo! There will be grilling and beer.
Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:05:25 +0000
Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:16:10 +0000
During one of the recent EPEL steering committee meetings, we started talking about communication and asking our potential for some feedback about EPEL. This was targeted specifically for those attending the upcoming
Red Hat Summit. When we started digging into the type of information we would be soliciting, it was quite interesting to me. As a member of the EPEL community basically since its inception, I hadn't really sat down to ask myself (both from my point of view and from that of my $DAYJOB), what I needed out of it, why I was using it, etc.
So, I decided that before I ask away at the Red Hat Summit (and I plan to), I would ask and answer the questions myself.
What do people want from EPEL?
This is probably the most difficult question in the bunch. People want so many different things. I'll speak from the perspective of my organization which manages thousands of RHEL systems. We would like properly packaged software compiled with sensible defaults that we can distribute to
n nodes in a consistent way. Basically, the primary benefit of EPEL is that I get a software package prebuilt, rather than having to download, make, make install. The the primary benefit. Our organization has needs for quite of bit of software that doesn't make in the core of RHEL (hello, puppet anyone?), so we rely on the Fedora community to package, hopefully test, and distribute a stable, working release of the software we require.
Do you use EPEL?
Yes. See Above. The primary reason we use EPEL over several other quality 3rd party repos is consistency and community. Consistency in that the packages will most mirror the methods and idiosyncrasies set forth by RHEL. It will be very compatible with RHEL. Community because I make several of these decisions for this type of thing at $DAYJOB, and, obviously, I am a part of the this community. I know how it operates, why decisions are made (for the most part) and trust the work of the core group. Community also plays a role in support. Because of my dealings with the Fedora Project as a whole, getting support for EPEL issues and questions is rather simple.
What problems do you experience using EPEL?
By far the biggest one for me is the lack of a package I truly need. Most often it's something in the perl realm. The enterprise still uses a lot of perl. I am not taking a step back into CPAN hell again. Give me a package. When I can't get a package, I'll try to build one myself, and ping the maintainer for a branch.
I've had very minimal luck soliciting Fedora maintainers not already involved with EPEL to branch their packages. I see this as a big problem. If somebody with a fairly decent understanding of the processes and procedures in place to make EPEL function can't convince a Fedora contributor to spend some time on enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS, etc), then how can the average user at a company running EL really be expected to get anywhere with it?
Another problem we see, from time to time, is incompatible upgrades for packages. I completely understand why this happens( security, dead upstream, upstream changes things), but it's still a pain. The SC has been working on some policies for this. I can simply recommend that if you use EPEL, being on the
-announce mailing list is basically a 'must-do' item.
What are the barriers for them using EPEL?
Honestly, the biggest one is up2date. In RHEL 4, I can't get set a proxy per repo, and I have to use a proxy internally for some content. It's kind of an odd technical challenge. Also, our organization doesn't mirror all of EPEL (specifically for RHEL4), so this proxy thing is an issue. I normally take the required package for 4, and load them into an RHN channel and work from there.
My only other barriers are normally artificial. Questions about support are brought up, but I normally counter those with some standard rant about how an 800 number to call or 'one throat to choke' certainly hasn't magically solved all of our IT problems. So, the rest are primarily a lack of education.
What would they like RH's relationship be with EPEL
I would like the policies EPEL put forth (don't replace core packages, etc) to be viewed and managed bi-bidirectionally. Currently it feels very much like the EPEL people are soliciting information from Red Hat for their issues. Red Hat has not always been forthcoming with information about packages being pulled into core, and at what versions they were branched. Additionally, when we open bugs on EL core due to a conflict with an EPEL package version or something, the response from the maintainers at Red Hat ranges from silence to complete disregard. There have probably been some situations in which Red Hat behaved wonderfully about issues like this, but those didn't get escalated to the steering committee.
What could EPEL do in the future to be a better repo?
More packages. I'd like to have nearly all Fedora packages, specifically perl-*, ruby-*, php-*, python-* in EPEL. My focus is very server-based so client stuff doesn't make much difference to me. I also think there could be more usage of EPEL as the primary distribution channel for several awesome open source projects that are currently found in stand-alone repos for RHEL. Things like
389,
spacewalk,
dogtag and really any open source project from
RHX. Ease of distribution doesn't seem like a revenue reduction risk for those products that have commercial enterprise offerings.
As a final point, I'd like to point out that
Keycheckerwas recently released by an EPEL user to help everybody identify where a package came from based on what GPG key signed the package. This is seen as a solution to long-term debate about easily knowing from whence a package arrived on system. I recommend this utility.
So, at the Red Hat Summit, I'll be around talking about EPEL, Systems Management, Community, Collaboration, and possibly frosty beverages. Say hi.
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:37:56 +0000
The Milwaukee Connection came through. This much of life is good, right now.
Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:23:30 +0000
I heard this angrily waft out of someone's cubicle today:
"I'm so frustrated about things that don't get done."
Isn't that precisely what frustration means?
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:45:24 +0000
A deep-fried food question lots of people missed
Fish: How can people not know "elephant ear"?
Jason: It is through the WICKEDNESS of the funnel cake!
If you've never heard me rant about the vile funnel cake, you should pull the cord some time.
Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:32:02 +0000
I'm not actually dead, I'm just as busy as a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Work is just crazy. I'm working on exporting some of PIE's functionality, and I keep finding that its designers had no grasp of how relational databases work. And I'm ok with that, I've known that was the case for a long time. There are huge repetitions of code everything, things are hard-coded that should all be handled in the database, the same information is stored in two different places and must be massaged to be kept in harmony.
After wading through all that, I found that these dimwits didn't even know how to use HTML tables. I'm losing my damn mind fixing all this crap. What should have taken a few hours to knock out is taking weeks, because it needs fixing and rewriting it isn't a real option.
I just had to bitch before I had an aneurysm... I feel a little better now.
Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:14:39 +0000
I thought I would do a quick mention that my friends at
Reductive Labs are holding the first ever
PuppetCamp in October. In in SF, so if you're a left coaster you might be able to attend.
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:56:12 +0000
The AFP dropped an unfortunate headline this morning:
US hopes for Iran nuclear response by September.
"Nuclear response" doesn't mean what Agence France-Presse thinks it means. Especially if you were born before 1987.
Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:21:53 +0000
I feel like
Julie!
Another successful recipe from Rachael Ray's 365: No Repeats cookbook.
We cooked #83, Ginger Vegetable Chicken Noodle Bowl. It worked out fantastically because Josh was the chopper and dicer and I was the stirrer and combiner. It was a lot of fun working in the kitchen with Josh, and I didn't have to do the part that I hate.
The noodles were DELICIOUS. Seriously, I had some of the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. It had the perfect amount of ginger. I would add more bean sprouts next time. Josh wants to try it with shrimp too. That'd be so yummy!
I can't wait to make this one again!
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:26:35 +0000
There was a sad event in the legacy of BKN a few weekends back. The grill we bought there broke a leg, which calls for the same treatment a horse doctor would dole out. It was a sad end to the original altar of Mealosophy, after dishing up literally hundreds of great meals.
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I was going to try to snag a Webber, supposedly the gold standard in kettle grills, but I found the BKN CharBroil's successor for a shade over $30. So, forget that plan.
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You can see they are cut from the same cloth.
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You can see there have been a few improvements, a toasting rack and a basket at the front.
Here's to many hundreds more happy grillings.
Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:48:07 +0000
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