respond?
04:17:52 PM, Thursday 30 August 2007
-
The purple loosestrife by the pond is blooming, and I seem to be badly allergic to the stuff. The honeybees and bumblebees are happy, though.
_
respond?
(3)
02:28:48 PM,
Thursday 30 August 2007
-
we have indian meal moths. Grumble. Though somehow I find it very helpful to know that they are caterpillars.
_
respond?
(9)
09:48:23 AM,
Thursday 30 August 2007
-
I'm caught up with my work! But I'm too embarrassed to send the email at 1:40 in the morning, so I have to get up in time to send it by 8am. Who says I didn't learn anything useful in college. Now I just need to find a more sensible of getting past mental blocks. One that doesn't rely on sleepiness as motivation. Maybe if I starve myself until I get my work done?
_
respond?
(2)
01:43:38 AM,
Wednesday 29 August 2007
-
Totalitarian Clippie. "The virtual officers, a man and a woman, will appear either on motorcycles, in a car or on foot, at the bottom of users' computer screens every 30 minutes to remind them of Internet security. (...) They will be on the watch for Web sites that incite secession, promote superstition, gambling and fraud,"
_
respond?
01:10:24 AM,
Wednesday 29 August 2007
-
One of our kayaks died. Split a seam when I left it out in the sun. Sad. But it does make getting a kayak with sail a more sensible use of resources.
_
respond?
10:13:51 PM,
Tuesday 28 August 2007
-
Erika points out that Digital Rights Management systems totally violate the 2nd law of robotics.
_
respond?
(7)
09:40:06 AM,
Tuesday 28 August 2007
-
One of the traditions on the arlington list is answering the immortal question, why on earth do we still have a noon horn? It comes back every 4 months or so. Someone new asks about it, people squabble about it, I get Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof stuck in my head, and everybody goes about their business. But this time, someone actually found a use for the thingk:
However there's a cool experiment you can do with the horn that verifies that the phone company moves your voice faster than the speed of sound. Call someone in Arlington center on the phone just before noon from the heights. You'll hear the horn through the phone, and then a few seconds later you'll hear it from the center.
I actually quite like it. But I live a fair way away from the thing, and I grew up in a town that had one. _
respond?
04:29:52 PM, Monday 27 August 2007
-
Oh, and Sick is about as interesting as a book of health care financing could be. It told all the stories I know, and some I didn't know, intercut with well-researched anedotes. It does a good job showing the awfulness of the system while avoiding cheap villians, and showing how it got that way. It's good journalism. What reading it all at once did was give me a sense of just how much flux there is in the health care system, which I'd never really thought about. But it also reenforced my dispair about the politics of health care reform. Not a cheerful book in any way.
_
respond?
01:38:53 PM,
Monday 27 August 2007
-
Actually used the TV for non-interactive content this weekend, for the first time in ages.
Serenity was all right for what it was, but I just didn't see any purpose to it's existence. It isn't like the original vision for Star Trek was actually a good idea. It was wayy too much Whedon dialog for one sitting. And I know I'm an official member of the anti-nitpicking alliance, but yeesh. I mean, it isn't like Buffy made any sense on a actual world level. But at least it was related to reality metaphorically. Irony and incoherence really do limit the emotional grip something can have. It was, like, a series of arbitrary things happen! But with biting one-liners, and explosions! It reminded me of the CIA episodes of Buffy. That isn't a good thing. Maybe if they had a better Harrison Ford impersonator. I don't know.
On the other hand, the Bleak House miniseries is gorgeous. It's quite different from your regular BBC period drama. They worked really hard to make it visually interesting, and just generally over-the-top. It doesn't run away from Dickenses strengths, the way most adaptations do. And there isn't a single main character I object to. And, of course, it's one of the best mystery stories, ever, so.
_
respond?
(2)
10:18:31 AM,
Monday 27 August 2007
-
Grar. My paddle game is using a free open-source implementation of OpenGL that was abandoned in 2003. I need to fix this. This is not going to be fun. I did work pretty hard to encapsulate all the graphics, knowing I'd have to do this sort of thing, but still. Maybe I should switch to directX? Humph.
_
respond?
(1)
07:44:24 PM,
Friday 24 August 2007
-
Erika is working on the genetic underpinnings of my paddle game! In particular, how the shape genetics are going to work. Very exciting. I should work on it as well. Just not during office hours.
_
respond?
02:17:09 PM,
Friday 24 August 2007
-
site & script courtesy of Moss
