bryn — !!!!!!!
May 16, 2008 02:20 PM
Running!!!Somewhat more than a year ago, I wrote about the last time I ran deliberately. Since then, I've run for the bus on occasion, and run to cross the street before the light changed, all of which are progress, but I've done no deliberate running. In January after I hurt my knee, I got new sneakers (Brooks), which are almost wide enough not to hurt too much. Yesterday morning I woke up and ran/walked/ran/walked around the .5 mile loop of our neighborhood. I didn't run the whole way, but I did run at least a third of it, and I also went the 'uphill' way. Of course today my feet hurt, plantar fastitis and sub-talar fusion site pain, but it's not too bad. I did walk this morning, which I won't do if I feel truly rotten, so I'm considering this a pretty good sign. Yay me!
bryn — Yet another of the joys of parenting...
May 14, 2008 07:54 PM
My son is in preschool. He will start kindergarten in the fall. This is great, and I'm thrilled, and so is he. He's all enrolled and everything. Lots of his classmates are going to kindergarten as well. So to signify this, the daycare is holding a Graduation. Ceremony. With robes and hats. At 10 am on a work day. Oh, goody. Really. I can't wait. I suppose I should invite all the grandparents? Or is that just waaaaay too much? If they're there, do I have to go too?Edited to add: Around here, the public schools do an 8th-grade graduation and possibly also a from-elementary-school graduation. By the time they get done with highschool, it isn't going to MEAN anything.
jeremy — Bike Week, Two Days In
May 14, 2008 03:00 AM
As previously mentioned, this week is Bike Week and so I'm pushing myself to only travel by bike for the week for going to school/work rather than availing myself of some of the other options. Plus, it's spring and the office isn't that far, so biking in to work gets me some good extra miles.Yesterday was supposed to be cool and rainy, but the weather forecasters were wrong and the day ended up being just cool and windy. Biked to school per normal, no real oddities. Legs were a little sore from Sunday's ride, but I took it easy and just tried to lightly spin which worked out well.
Today ended up being significantly warmer than I expected, so I ended up peeling off some clothes on my way out to the office. I also happened to be behind a guy on the bike path who had both of the pannier bags that I've been considering (the Arkel Bug and the Arkel Commuter). This was convenient as I was able to get some real opinions and based on that, I think I'm going to go with the Commuter.
My way home ended up being a bit more interesting... I passed a few Quad riders on 225 as I was heading back but only noticed as I was flying past them spinning for all I could (ahhh, the fixie on downhills :). They did eventually catch me with a "don't you hate having to race to catch up to a commuter on a single speed" and I rode with them for a ways. Fell off as they sped down Lowell Rd and I continued on. Happened upon someone on the other side of Concord Center with a mechanical and stopped to try to help them. Finally made it home as it was getting dark and then ended up helping my next door neighbor, who needed to borrow a pump so that he can bike to work tomorrow.
jeremy — Woo!
May 13, 2008 08:58 PM
And with that, a couple of huge weights are lifted off my shoulder. Let's recap or those playing along at home...- My Product Design project was finished up, presented and had a bow tied on it last Friday
- Fedora 9 was released this morning
- My final paper for Technology Strategy was just submitted
Just one class tomorrow and I have a few weeks of "just" work before summer classes start up. It looks like I'm taking Systems Engineering and System Dynamics over the summer. Hopefully with the two classes, the workload won't be too high so that I can manage to get in plenty of riding ;-) Of course, if I bike on the days I come into the office like I did today, that'll help substantially with my overall mileage.
bryn — It's Monday, so it must be political argument day.
May 12, 2008 07:38 PM
How do I do this?I've managed to get in to two separate arguments with (apparent) Libertarians here and there (one or both of these might well be locked to you, sorry!).
The upshot of their argument is that they think that 'the government', specifically the Federal government, shouldn't be doing all of the things that it does, because it is too restrictive, or illegal, or whatever.
I keep hearing these arguments, and I've started to clarify my position somewhat. I maintain that government, whether federal, state, or local, is built on a framework originally, but after that has been grafted on to by whatever legislative body comes along. Thus, while there is a coherent underlying structure to most governments in the United States, there are a fair number of truly silly laws out there. Most laws that have been passed since the original government framework was set up are reactionary. They are submitted, lobbied about, and voted on because of something that happened to someone or that didn't happen to someone in a timely fashion. I'm not going to do examples, sorry. I'm sure you can think of plenty.
I further maintain that government caters to the lowest common denominator, providing emergency tree removal service from roadways but not from house roofs, providing education enough so that the people employed at your grocery store can read enough to work a cash register, and so that people don't randomly die on the street from hunger or treatable medical conditions simply because they can't afford food or medical care. You don't get GOOD food on foodstamps, and you certainly don't get GOOD medical care on Medicaid, but it is generally adequate, and not likely to let you die of neglect.
Additionally, I'm not saying that the system we have now is actually GOOD, but it is way the hell better than not having any system at all, because that's when people start dying. Maybe not tomorrow, but they'd die sooner, and/or in a great deal of pain, or after years of debilitating illness.
I know of nobody in government (and I include myself here, as a member of several voluntary boards) who likes the way 'the system' is set up now and wouldn't change a thing. It's like any big 'organic' agency that has grown up over time instead of being deliberately developed - although the system is still barely visible under the bureaucratic weight, that doesn't mean that the structure is followed in all (or even many) cases.
So, three things - government is built by messy humans, it is there to provide adequate, not optimal, service, and it is better than not having a government.
I'd be happy to agree theoretically that there are plenty of other systems out there that would work as well or better privatized except that it's the 'meantime' that's a problem. Say we decide to privatize all of the food inspection in this country. How many people die of botulism poisoning during the switchover while all the kinks are ironed out? That's the 'meantime', and that's what I have a problem with.
bryn — No monsters allowed!
May 12, 2008 02:52 AM
At some point in childhood, most kids worry about monsters. Most parents find that it doesn't do any good to tell the kid that there isn't any such thing as monsters, so I decided I'd come up with a different tack. Whenever N. mentions monsters, I say 'There are no monsters allowed in this house!'This has worked admirably well, because we don't have to deal with the 'not believing in monsters' part, and N. knows that I'm protecting him, because if any monsters DO get in to the house, they'll be in big trouble because either Mom or Dad will beat them up and throw them out.
This comes up every once in a while, most recently last night after we had played Mario Kart Wii (flash) - there were a few Piranha Plants
, and he said that they scared him. We talked about how the plants were stuck in their pipe/pots, and I reminded him that monsters weren't allowed in our house. This was good enough for him, so he went to sleep.
jeremy — Time for a spring century
May 12, 2008 02:12 AM
As some/many of you know, May is National Bike Month and this coming week is Bike Week. Earlier in the week, one of the guys I ride with started circulating the idea of doing an 80-100 mile ride this weekend. After some discussion, Sunday was decided on as the more likely day and then it was circulated to a wider group. I was still a little on the fence about doing it, but managed to wake up and get out the door on time and headed down to the shop. There ended up being ten of us to start out, which was a pretty good number I thought. We started off at a good clip, averaging about 19 mph for the first 30-35 miles. At this point, four people needed to turn off due to time pressures and the climbing really started. The six of us left continued on and took our next stop in Sterling as there were some people needing water at that point. The stop ended up being a smidge longer than my legs wanted and then we headed off towards Princeton and the climb. I actually have to say that the summit wasn't actually as bad as I was expecting -- even with a 12-25, it was very doable. The way back had a few dodgy sections of road, but overall wasn't bad. I dropped off on a hill around mile 78 due to some cramping, but Emily was still behind me, so I waited up for her and we headed back largely straight up 62. After Concord Center, I noticed that the time was getting on the late side for me to get back by when I said I would, so I pushed a bit up Rt 2A to make it back in time.
Map of the route
Elevation profile
Overall distance was about 101 miles and the riding time was just over 6 hours for an average speed of 16.4 mph. Not bad given the mountain in the middle and the headwind heading back. And about 7000 feet of climbing. Overall, a nice early spring century and also some good climbing. And a nice way to start out bike week, even if I might be a little sore in the morning.
Luis Villa — interesting research on ‘conditional cooperation’
May 10, 2008 04:39 PM
Interspecies cooperation by Barry Rogge. License: 
For those interested in some of my previous writings on intrinsic motivation, this survey paper by Simon Gächter may be of interest.
Key sentence:
[W]e find strong evidence that many people’s attitude toward voluntary cooperation is conditional on other people’s cooperation… Moreover, the fact that many people contribute more the more others contribute also speaks against pure altruism explanations, because they predict that people reduce their own contributions when informed that others already contribute to the public good.
Basically, the paper argues (and justifies through a survey of experimental evidence) that a majority of people are ‘conditional cooperators’ who cooperate in community projects (voting, paying taxes, charity work, etc.) if and only if other people cooperate. If they think others are ‘defecting’ (i.e., not cooperating) then they will stop cooperating as well.
The paper also has some more detailed observations that come out of the experimental work; among them that voluntary cooperation is fragile; group composition matters (i.e., groups with more conditional cooperators will be healthier); and that ‘belief management’ maters- i.e., if people think that they are in a group with more conditional cooperators, that group will be more robust. None of these will come as a huge surprise to anyone who has been involved with volunteer communities, but still interesting to see it experimentally confirmed.
I’ve always suspected that something like this is the case, and that it explains in part why the GPL is so successful, since it uses copyright to force cooperation and penalize defection, and (importantly) makes a clear public statement that that is the case, which serves a signaling function (everyone in the community knows these are the ground rules) and a filtering function (people who aren’t interested in collaborating don’t join as much as they join other groups.)
The paper is only 25 pages and fairly readable; if you’re interested in the dynamics of volunteerism I recommend it.
Those of you who aren’t into economists and their fancy ‘measurements’ may also want to look at this related early paper, which is somewhat dated (the concept of low and high authoritarians is sort of discredited at this point) but still possibly of interest in explaining some of the psychological mechanisms at work here.
(Came to this by way of this paper on tax evasion, which looks to have many other interesting citations that I should investigate once exams are done. Only Telecoms left…)
jeremy — PDD Final Presentations
May 10, 2008 05:32 AM
Tonight, we had the final presentations for Product Design and Development. Over the course of the class, we were to start out by looking at a few markets to uncover the needs of users, narrow in on a market and a product concept and go all the way to building a prototype and a business plan. As I think I've previously noted, I very intentionally did not go after working on a software product to avoid falling into the trap of doing product development the way that I always do -- instead, I used it as an opportunity to work within a different subject area and you know, do some learning :-)With the final presentations, we were to all do a 10 minute presentation of our product concept with everything from information on the user needs, a prototype and our business plan. We also had a mini-tradeshow with tables for demo'ing our products as well as anything else that we wanted to do within the space of half a six foot table. Along with this was a contest amongst the products -- each team was judged by the faculty and a set of additional judges to pick the "best" of the products presented.
With 18 teams, this made for a relatively long evening. But it was amazing to see what all of the teams managed to pull together in the short space of semester. Some of the products had seemed very unlikely from earlier presentations on their concepts, but they were able to pull them together.
My team worked on a product for the tea drinker and I did the first half of the presentation. And, at the end of the night, our product was chosen as the best one. Which is pretty awesome. After the presentations and tear-down, a bunch of us headed to Tommy Doyle's. And now, it's time for bed.
bryn — cookies!
May 09, 2008 03:37 PM
No, not the yummy kind, the web-browser kind. I'm crawling through changing this application so that it can use a web-based authentication service for single-sign-on capability, and I get to use that service's cookie to create the application's cookie. So I'm wandering through my local cookie file and I see the LJ cookie. It says: "LiveJournal+loves+you+a+lot+/+Here+have+a+cookie"This just makes me giggle.
Now back to dissecting cookies via PHP (ouch).
I'll try to remember to wipe up the crumbs when I'm done...
bryn — well, crud. Memorial Day plans evaporating rapidly.
May 07, 2008 08:34 PM
First, we were planning on going to DC. This rapidly escalated in to 'too expensive'. Next, we looked at going to Charlotte, which has some cool stuff. BUT there's a race that weekend, so available hotel rooms start around $100/night WAAAAY out of town. Not so much, for 2 rooms for 4 nights (we're all taking off Tuesday for returning to town).We= all three of us plus both moms. This is arguably crazy.
So, where else can/should we go? The beach is not a popular idea for about 33,000 reasons. Asheville? Williamsburg? Nowhere (this would NOT result in a happy
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
margaretc)?
cec — E-book blogging
May 07, 2008 01:49 AM
I’ve had the Sony Reader now for about a week. In that time, I’ve taken it on a plane trip, read three full books, multiple days worth of the NY Times and I’m in the middle of two books right now. Observations so far:
- The electronic paper is very readable. On my plane trip, I must have read for several hours straight with no more eye strain than if I had been reading a paper book. The legibility is good regardless of font size. You might still want to increase the font size if your eyes are tired, but otherwise, there is no need.
- The menus and button layouts are pretty reasonable. You can page forward or back. There’s a up-down-left-right cursor that is used to move around on a page. Using the number buttons on the right, you can jump to an arbitrary page in the book. These buttons double as a quick jump to a menu item on the Reader’s standard menus. One gripe, you can only move to different links using up/down on the cursor, left/right don’t do anything. At GB, paideka mentioned that it would be interesting to see what Apple did with the layout and look and feel of a reader. Agreed
- Battery life appears to be as advertised: 7,500 page turns per charge. Keep in mind that a page on the reader contains only about half the content of a standard paper back (depending on page layout and font size). Still, around 3,500 pages of paper back text is still pretty good.
- Updating the screen is slow. It takes about .5 - .75 seconds to update the screen. A few ramifications: 1) this is almost un-noticeable while reading text; and 2) using the cursor keys is painful, you deal with the update time for each cursor pressed - where ever possible I use the numeric shortcuts.
- A third ramification of the slow update time is that the Reader, and almost certainly any other reader using this generation of e-paper, is unusable as a reference book. When I use a reference book, I flip around quite a bit. Forward to the index, back to the text, forward many pages to the next topic, etc. I suppose if the reference book had a really good index, it might be better, but for the most part, this is still not a good tool for referencing which is a real shame.
- The bookmarking system is good. Each book keeps your place in the book. The top level of the reader keeps up with the last book you’ve read and your place in that book. You can set any number of bookmarks in each book and then access the bookmarks on a global or a per book basis. It would be nice if the reader also kept a list of most recently read, rather than just the single most recently read book; but that’s a small issue. Typically, I’ll just set a bookmark when I pause in reading, then delete it when I pick the book back up.
- PDF conversion still leaves something to be desired. I’ve looked into this a bit. The converter I’m using converts PDF -> HTML -> LRF. The PDF -> HTML conversion uses pdftohtml (surprised?) which is good in some ways, but still leaves off certain things (like images!), at least as used by the reader’s converter. Part of this is due to conceptual differences between PDF and HTML. HTML marks up text, flagging paragraphs, noting images, etc. Ideally, all of this is passed to the browser which handles the layout. PDF will have none of that. PDF consists of a set of primitives that indicate what text (in which font and size) should go in which location on the page. There is no markup of paragraphs, instead, each line of text is described individually. There is no easy way to reconstruct paragraphs from a PDF file (as a research note, I wonder if you could use a partially observable markov decision process?). That said, minus the missing images, the LRF result is definitely readable.
So overall, I’m pretty happy with the reader. The biggest issue is the refresh time on the electronic paper and I hope that will improve over the next couple of years.
p.s. If you’re curious, so far I’ve read: Free for All (a history of open source), The Authoritarians (a sociologist’s take on a personality type and how it affects politics) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (which I haven’t read in over 20 years). I’m currently reading Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ and Bruce Sterling’s Hacker Crackdown.
Luis Villa — new altlaw feature
May 06, 2008 10:52 PM
Altlaw, the restoring-caselaw-to-the-public-domain-where-it-belongs project I’ve been involved with on and off since last year, just got a new feature; it now parses the cases that are cited and shows them as sidebar links. It hasn’t propagated to all cases yet, but you can see an example here. (I stumbled across this by looking up that case for my exam tomorrow, rather than because anyone actually told me what was going on. Clearly I should be subscribed to the site’s news feed. :) Still needs some love, but it is great to see it getting there- impressive what can be done these days on a very serious shoestring.
bryn — The piper returneth!
May 06, 2008 08:42 PM
Well, in a little while.I've placed an order for a set of these. They should be ready about the time I get ready to pack up to go to The Pipers' Gathering. This means that I won't really get to play them much before hand. I do still have my big pipes, those aren't going anywhere, and I have 2 other sets of pipes that I'm frustrated with and annoyed at and am considering selling, maybe. I've been playing the pennywhistle a bit more lately, and singing a lot as well.
jeremy — Not dead yet!
May 06, 2008 03:45 AM
Just really, really busy. Between the end of the semester and chugging towards the Fedora 9 release, haven't had a chance to write much. Highlights in bulleted form...- Birthday was good. Had some people over for a game night and I think everyone had a pretty good time
- Prototype for our product in PDD is finished and it looks really nice. It's cool to have an idea and then see it realized in a physical form. Something you don't really get in the software world
- Tech Strategy continues to be good... I want to write up summaries of some of the classes, but just haven't gotten there. Maybe I'll do a whirlwind pass through them late next week
- Summer schedule is out... I think I'm going to take Systems Engineering and System Dynamics this summer, leaving the finance/accounting and supply chain classes for next summer
- Fall schedule is also out... pretty much have to take System Architecture and Systems Project Management then. But also have room for at least one other class, just need to decide what. On the plus side, lots of good options to choose from
- Fedora 9 is shaping up quite nicely -- only the last minute "oh no!" types of things cropping up now. Feeling a little bit more confident today about getting the release out "on time"
- Big presentation for PDD on Friday, big paper for Tech Strategy the first of next week... lots to do, not a lot of time
- Warm enough that I'm not letting rain stop me from biking... realized that I didn't take the T to class at all during April. I did let the rain stop me from racing, though
- Just another week and a half and things get a lot better...
cec — If you love something, set it free . . .
May 06, 2008 02:58 AM
About a year and a half ago (November 2006), the wildlife clinic K volunteers with transfered a water turtle (yellow bellied slider) to her. A cute little guy, just over 7 grams and about the size of a quarter. Yesterday, weighing in at 125 g and with a shell about 4 inches long, we released her into the nearby lake. It’s easy to fall for a lot of the animals K rehabs. Their cute and tiny or just plain helpless and on the mend, but the turtles are particularly hard because K keeps them for so long. The following are a handful of the pictures we’ve taken of the turtle:
- the first 6 pictures were taken in August 2007 when she was about 16 grams
- the second 9 were taken in January 2008 when she was 25g and we were trying to tempt her into eating by giving her meal worms
- the next 6 were taken yesterday before the release - 125g and big enough to defend herself
- the last 3 were taken at the release in Jordan Lake
Good luck little turtle
bryn — Employee Appreciation
May 05, 2008 07:52 PM
Each year this place of employment gives out a gift to each employee for Employee Appreciation month. Everyone gets the same thing. This year, it's a portable, velcroed-shut blanket with a handle. I guess you're supposed to use it at football games, or some such. I stuck it under the passenger seat in my car and forgot about it, but now I realize what it was really for - it's to ward off the air conditioning that is being blasted throughout every building here.brr.
thunder
May 03, 2008 11:03 PM
Dear Luis:
FOCUS, YOU BABOON!
bryn — futon
May 03, 2008 09:06 PM
Anyone want a futon? It's a double-bed size, it's the one that's been sitting in our living-room for years. We moved it because of the electrician visit, and now we don't want to move it back. It's yours, and if you're in Chapel Hill/Carrboro/south Durham, we'd even deliver.
bryn — What if this IS what it is all about?
May 02, 2008 03:13 PM
Performance
bryn — Note to self:
May 01, 2008 01:33 PM
Don't say 'Happy Mayday' to the Hungarian across the hall. Probably a good idea to avoid mentioning it to the Russians down the way, too, and even the Pole up the other way. This will thoroughly confuse the Chinese residents of the department, however.
bryn — File under 'Reasons not to have more than one child'
May 01, 2008 12:52 PM
Luis Villa — duke polisci majors actually can do something useful with their lives
April 30, 2008 09:40 PM
bryn — Washing machine
April 30, 2008 07:57 PM
I know you have all been waiting with baited breath to hear if I got a new washing machine or not. Well, you can sit back in your seat now, because it was deliveredIt washes clothes. This is very good.
It spins them very very quickly when they're clean, so they get very dry even before going in to the dryer. It's a Whirlpool top-loader, with the new-style non-agitator washing mechanism.
And before it came over to be installed, A. ripped out the moldy moulding and wet drywall and cracked toe-board and pulled up the torn vinyl flooring and replaced it. It looks fantastic, except for the completely unnecessary GIANT RIP in the middle of the new floor. No, it shouldn't have torn. No, it wasn't torn on purpose or through negligence. It was torn apparently because of some manufacturing defect or something. Poo. It'll get replaced.
On to the bathroom (again) - must wall in around the shower surround, start working on shelves, buy and install a sink, replace 99% of the moulding...
And then we need to replace the door, knob, and frame to Nate's room, since he locked himself into his room while mostly asleep and couldn't get out, and A. had to break in to the room with much force.
But hey, I bought myself a table saw! So now I get to make shelves and benches and mitred cuts and stuff. Yay!
thunder — Love On Tax Holidays
April 30, 2008 07:49 PM
Honorary cheetah and explorer extraordinaire Robert 'Hawk Killer' Love tells it like it is.
cec — Book lover + nerd = ebook
April 29, 2008 02:45 PM
Yesterday, I bought a Sony Reader - the electronic book reader that uses E Ink’s electronic paper. The electronic paper display on the reader is very nice. It uses encapsulated white and black pigments that can be brought to the surface of the page. The only power consumption involved happens when you make a change. Once the change is made, it requires no power to keep the image. The upshot is that you’ve got a very long battery life, a decent contrast ration and a display that can be read in any light - in fact, the more the better since it’s reflective (like paper) rather than backlit (like a monitor). Moreover, because it’s not backlit, it’s easier on the eyes when reading for a long time. I read for a couple of hours last night and it was no different than reading a paper book.
The Sony Reader hasn’t gotten quite the notoriety of Amazon’s Kindle, even though they both have the same display and the Sony came out a month earlier. I suspect that’s because Amazon hyped the Kindle and after all, it was tied to the largest (or is it second largest?) book seller in the world.
So, why did I go with the Sony and not the Kindle? A handful of reasons:
- Price - the Sony is $100 cheaper. I’m hoping that this isn’t the last version of electronic paper to come out and that things will continue to improve. That being the case, why should I spend the extra money.
- Linux use - okay, technically, the Kindle doesn’t require any computer to use it, but I suspect that I would want to attach it to a computer anyway. If for no other reason than to save the transfer cost for anything I send to the device that isn’t purchased from Amazon. Beyond that, libprs500 is very nice software. It handles file conversions, can download RSS feeds and convert them to the reader’s format, etc.
- Books - I almost certainly won’t buy electronic books for the reader. Not that it’s not a good device for reading, but I’ve got two concerns: 1) I don’t want the books I buy (or music for that matter) to be locked up by DRM software, things change quickly and I want my books to follow; and 2) the price point for electronic books isn’t right. Why would I pay the paperback price for an electronic version that has essentially 0 duplication and distribution costs? Instead, I’ll probably start piping the newspaper to the reader and will catch up on a lot of the content of Project Gutenberg that I’ve been meaning to read.
Last night, I added about 100 books and short stories to the reader. I think that’ll be enough to keep me for a while. 
Happy reading
hsarik — Knitting news, now with added butterflies!
April 28, 2008 12:31 AM
I finally finished the Arrow Lace socks today. Never again will I let a second sock linger for months waiting to be finished.
I had noticed that the first sock seemed a bit looser than the new one, but I figured I'd just stretched it out from trying it on. Turns out I knitted the first sock with size 1.5 needles, and the second with size 1s. I think this is at least part of the reason why they have completely different color pooling. They both fit fine and look identical in terms of the patterning, so I'm happy.
While out in the woods, I cast on for Cozy with the cone of Art Fibers Ming Jag gave me for my birthday. This is some wonderful yarn. I'll do a couple repeats and see if I still like how it's turning out on size 9s.
I've also started a new Secret Project for Mom, which can be viewed here by non-Mom persons.
I bought 8 kinds of herbs at the Herbfest in Wake Forest on Friday and got those planted in containers this weekend with help from Jag. While we were planting, we were repeatedly dive-bombed by a really pretty butterfly that turned out to be a black swallowtail. It was very interested in my gone-to-seed parsley plants, and it turns out that black swallowtail caterpillars prefer to munch on members of the carrot family, like fennel and parsley.
I tried to take some pictures, but its little wings were beating about 50 times a second. If any of the camera nuts who read this blog can advise me on what settings work for pictures like this, I'd be much obliged. I played around with the shutter speed and aperture in manual mode, but I get dark and/or blurry pictures at high speeds no matter what I do. Maybe my camera just sucks. Or maybe I need to haul a Klieg light around with me.
And Jag's favorite:
Luis Villa — sometimes a number hits you like a baseball bat to the head
April 27, 2008 12:17 PM
Televisions from days gone by by Neil Anderson. License:
Clay Shirky on how small wikipedia is, relative to the way we’ve spent our culture’s free time for the past fifty years:
So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project–every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in–that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.
And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that’s finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.
The whole thing is worth reading, but that particular bit just jumped out at me like a lightning bolt.
On that note, back to my cave to work on passing Corporations and E-Commerce exams.
hsarik — Which of these things is not like the others?
April 26, 2008 03:14 PM
Which of these things just doesn't belong?
hsarik — Fairy Stone Park Visit, Part II
April 26, 2008 02:01 AM
On Monday we decided to head out on the Lakeshore Trail, a 1.1-mile non-looping path that ends at the dam between Fairy Stone Lake and Philpott Lake.
Shockingly, the lake is visible for large portions of the Lakeshore Trail. We averted our eyes as best we could.
This little rise led to a nice overlook at the top.
As we hit the back half of the trail, the sun came out!
The section of the trail near the dam, which winds into the woods following the path of a little creek, was one of my favorite parts of the park.
There was even a little waterfall (although probably pretty dinky compared to Little Mountain Falls, which we didn't have time to visit on this trip).
Someone had scratched out a picture of the sun on the back of the "Hey moron, don't try to row your boat over the spillway!" sign at the dam. It clearly had some effect, because this was one of the few non-overcast periods of our entire stay.
We felt the approving presence of Bob Ross here. The lake was really lovely and the trees were very happy.
These trees are upwards of 6 Jags high. Very tall indeed.
Here I am at the dam, wearing my ridiculous pants. Also my bra seems to have just given up at some point.
And here's Jag, looking all hiker-y in his spiffy hat.
The trails in this part of the park were VERY well-marked. Some might say ridiculously so. We extended our walk by hooking up with the Turkey Ridge Trail for a while, and looking down the path here, FIVE separate blazes can be seen at once. (Click on the picture to see a detailed view.)
In case this wasn't enough of a hint, there's a sign letting you know that the trail is THAT way. You know, in the direction of those THREE BLAZES RIGHT THERE. I can only assume that a Boy Scout troop wandered off this trail at some point in its not-as-well-marked past and was devoured by rabid beavers. Maybe next year they'll hire people to stand near the trees waving those lighted airplane guide sticks.
End of Part II
cec — Musical fortune telling
April 25, 2008 01:59 PM
From etselec and because it amused me, my fortune as told by a random selection of my music with interpretive accompaniment by yours truly:
1. How does the world see me?
Lightnin’ Hopkins - No Education
Ouch. Apparently the world sees me as an academic poseur. I guess I can live with that, but it’s a bit rough to see.
2. Will I have a happy life?
R.E.M. - Exhuming McCarthy
Hrm. I guess this means that I will be persecuted for my perceived communism by a raving lunatic. I’m not a big fan of persecution, but I suppose that being harassed by an idiot like McCarthy might be fun for a while. Of course, the downside is that I’ll be professionally ruined.
3. What do my friends really think of me?
Barenaked Ladies - Just a Toy
Is this fortune done yet? I’m guessing this suggests a clown. That’s very sad.
4. Do people secretly lust after me?
Steppenwolf - For Ladies Only
I think I’m going to take that as a “yes” and move on.
5. How can I make myself happy?
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - All My Lovin
I guess that means to stay married, but with a punk beat. I can do that.
6. What should I do with my life?
John Lee Hooker - I Cover the Waterfront
Is this saying that I should go to sea? Maybe I can work with rdc at MOTE
7. Why must life be so full of pain?
The Pogues - Dirty Old Town
I think this says that life is full of pain because of the breakdown of community and the social safety net. We all have it in our capability to make other people happier and we choose not to.
8. How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
They Might Be Giants - Which Describes How You’re Feeling All the Time
Bahahaaa! In Chasing Amy, there was a discussion of “constant information” during sex. I think we’ll go with that and move on.
9. Will I ever have children?
Men Without Hats - Intro: Eloise
Yes - and at least the first will be a girl named Eloise, poor girl.
10. Will I die happy?
XTC - Miniature Sun
Interpreting this involves knowing a little family history or maybe it’s family legend - those things are hard to keep straight. Shortly after the Civil War, the Union wanted someone to retrieve a load of dynamite from Pennsylvania in the winter. Since dynamite is unstable at cold temperatures, it would take an idiot. Enter a some of my great-uncles (or maybe great-great-uncles) who managed to get themselves blown up in the attempt. I take this to mean that I too will die in a ball of fire. So, does that mean happy? Probably, after all, I am an engineer
11. What is some good advice for me?
Blues Traveler - Gotta Get Mean
Boo. Hiss. I demand a new fortune that’s less cynical.
12. What is happiness?
Blues Traveler - Lost me there
Ha - that sounds about right. I’m really better with contentment than happiness and after all, I’m entering that time in my life when people are supposed to be less happy. Check back in 15 years or so and I’m supposed to be on the upswing of that one.
13. What’s my favourite fetish?
Steppenwolf - Don’t Step on the Grass, Sam
Okay, so not a pot smoker. Never been a drug taker. If I had to guess, it’s a reference to the promotion of civil liberties which is something of a fetish for me.
14. How will I be remembered?
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Low Down Man
Ouch. And we end the fortune the same way we began it with - insults to my character. I think I need a better (or maybe worse) random song selector, or maybe better music.
jeremy — Busy, busy, week
April 25, 2008 04:05 AM
As really seems to be the norm, this week is also falling into the nice and busy category.Had the ERBA quiz on Wednesday and didn't think it was bad at all -- fair in terms of what was asked and if you paid attention to the review session, you had a very good idea of what was coming. Tech Strategy I felt less prepared for than I typically do just because I hadn't had much time to really read and digest the case. We were looking at Adobe and while I had familiarity with a lot of the events covered, that familiarity just didn't run as deeply as some of the other things we've covered. PDD was a pretty interesting class too, even with a guest lecturer -- the speaker was the professor's husband who has a lot of experience in coming up with product ideas and selling them either to companies or through a company he's working for at the time. His experience had largely been in children's toys, but it was still pretty fascinating to hear the stories he had as well as some of the processes and lessons learned.
Then, we had the first SDM Connect event of the year. Unlike the ones I attended last year, this one was a bit more formal -- we brought in a few people from a private investment group who were actively recruiting to get someone new to join their firm. But instead of a more information conversation, it was tilted more towards being a presentation. Which isn't bad, but lots of slides with lots of words aren't my proverbial cup of tea ;-) We had a good turnout, though, which is good as hopefully it will help to ensure that we can bring in more people effectively through the rest of the year.
Today was a day at the office, but the morning started off with my alarm not having been set. Managed to get up just in time to get ready and make the bus, though, so it wasn't an entire bust. Then, I had been planning on looking at some blockers and also sitting down to do a review of pytrainer since the package got submitted. Of course, I had failed to remember that the materials for prep'ing for the office move were present now, and so instead, I spent the day doing that. My cube is now pretty empty looking as everything is instead in boxes. So, now I've shifted things and hopefully I'll get to what I wanted to from today tomorrow.
After coming home, I headed down to the bike shop for our monthly social event where I hung out and just chatted with people. It sounds like we're going to have a good showing for the race at Blue Hills in a little over a week, so hopefully that will work out well. Also, before I headed down there, Kara gave me my birthday present even though I had said she didn't really need to get me anything. She got me the Garmin Edge 305 which I've been wanting for a while but trying not to buy for myself. It should be pretty sweet for keeping better track of my riding and helping to improve my training. The next trick will be getting it to work nicely in Fedora and seeing if I can figure out what some of the web-based apps are looking for in terms of data so that we can have good support for them ;-)
cec — Genetic discrimination
April 25, 2008 03:11 AM
Oh, and an ironic follow-up to the republican filibuster of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: apparently, the senate unanimously voted for a bill barring genetic discrimination in hiring and insurance. I wonder if anyone’s told them that your gender is based on your genes. Not that I would accuse senate republicans of being misogynistic in their concern over discrimination. Well, okay, yes I would.
cec — Workplace discrimination
April 25, 2008 03:06 AM
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate took up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which the House had already passed. The act was pretty reasonable. It essentially clarified the 1964 civil rights act to say that if you are being discriminated in terms of salary equity, you have 180 days from the date of each paycheck to file a claim. So, essentially it defines the act of discrimination as occurring with each short changed paycheck and not just with the initial salary setting.
The case stems from Lilly Ledbetter who was a manager at Goodyear. She was paid significantly less than her male counterparts for the same job. Everyone agrees that she was discriminated against on the basis of her gender. She was awarded $3.5 million in back pay and punitive damages. Goodyear appealed and the supreme court ruled that congress had written the law so that you had to file suit within 180 days from the first discriminatory paycheck not the most recent. Ledbetter, who didn’t know her colleagues’ salaries until years later was SOL.
The bill seems pretty simple, clarify that the clock resets with each discriminatory paycheck. But unfortunately, that didn’t work for the republicans who filibustered it on Wednesday. It was pretty much a straight party line vote. Both of the democratic candidates for president voted for the bill, most of the republicans voted to uphold the filibuster. One exception, that mavericky maverick John McCain. McCain believes that women should be paid equitably, but doesn’t want to encourage lawsuits, so rather than take a stand and vote for or against the bill… he dodged and didn’t vote at all. Way to take a stand!
The republicans claim that they too want to see equal pay for equal work, but that they don’t want to encourage lawsuits. Well, guess what - that’s just tough. There are two ways to deal with corporate bad behavior: regulations (where the executive branch can fine a company) and the your-on-your-own approach of allowing lawsuits. For as long as I can remember, republicans have been campaigning against both of these means to rein in bad business behavior. They campaign against regulations (”they make our businesses less competitive”) and they campaign to limit your ability to sue when they break the law (”tort reform to keep money out of the hands of trial lawyers!”). So apparently it’s the official position of the republican party that companies should be able to do what they want and if you don’t like it, you can go to Canada.
My hope is that the democrats use the republican’s opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to beat the snot out of the republicans in the general election.
bryn — Notes from keynote address for CIT
April 24, 2008 04:20 PM
Sarah Robbins (intellagirl) is giving the keynote address right now for Duke's Center for Instructional Technology's annual conference. She is talking about how to keep students engaged technologically, and I wanted to mention a few notes from new-to-me applications/APIs.Live Plasma
Similarity Web
Flicker feed (makes sentences with flickr keywords).
hsarik — Fairy Stone Park Visit, Part I
April 24, 2008 12:12 PM
The day of the trip started out sunny and nice. We had a big brunch at Eno River Eatery (one of the Briggs/LeCoco/Courtney's clones) and headed out around 1.
As we drove into Virginia, the weather got worse. The resulting downpour got so bad that we pulled over for a little bit, but the storm blew through pretty quickly and settled down to a drizzle.
Yay! We have arrived! The party can start now! According to the GPS, the trip took a mere 2 hours and 4 minutes.
We stayed in Cabin 12. All of the cabins have heat/AC, a kitchen, living/dining room, bathroom, and 1-2 bedrooms. Our cabin was listed as having a "limited lake view", which was pretty decent with the trees not yet leafed out.
The cabin also had a nice screened porch. The cotton ball someone had used to plug one of the holes in the screen gave it an exciting "GOOD GOD IS THAT A GIANT SPIDER EGG-CASE????" feel.
The kitchen was small, but very well-stocked for a state park facility. Microwave, stove, fridge, coffeemaker, and all the basic pots/pans, dishes, mugs, glasses, bowls, etc you'd need.
The mini-stove was cute even though it tried to alternately undercook and incinerate our cinnamon rolls.
The living/dining room was decorated in Early Mildly Depressing State Park B&W Photos and had a fireplace (with a bundle of firewood waiting) and some furniture from This End Up's reject pile. Actually, the furniture was fairly comfortable. The approximately 10-watt bulbs in the lamps were more annoying.
The view from the screened porch was nice. We especially enjoyed it when we walked out to have a little sit-down after unpacking and realized we'd locked both the doors behind us. Neither of us had shoes, and it was still raining. Luckily Jag still had his car keys, so we drove up barefoot to the ranger station (about a half mile down the road) to borrow a spare key from the very nice staff. It was 4:10 when we arrived and it turned out that they close for the day at 4:30. Good timing. Walking that distance barefoot in the rain would have pretty much sucked.
It continued to rain for a bit after we completed the Key Exchange of Humiliation. We took a stroll down the back yard to check out the lake.
Yep, still raining.
Miraculously, the skies cleared after a bit, so we took a walk down to the beach area on Fairy Stone Lake. The Beach Trail is about a half mile each way and parallels the main road.
It remained sunny out for upwards of 20 minutes!
These tree roots looked like a face to me.
Across the lake is a large hill, formerly the site of iron mines, called Stuart's Knob. We explored that trail system later in the trip.
The beach (which is clearly, how do you say, artificial) was pretty quiet at this time of year. Swimming doesn't start til Memorial Day, but there were a number of people fishing. No boats for rent yet, either. Next time we definitely want to bring/rent a canoe.
We stopped by the live bait vending machine to check out dinner options.
There's a little amphitheater down by the lake, complete with podium and hookups for a projector. It didn't look as though it had been used in quite some time. Not sure how much call there is for doing Powerpoint presentations in the middle of a state park.
End of Part I
thunder — Easy Binary Components (again)
April 24, 2008 06:27 AM
I've updated the binary XPCOM component starter kit to version 0.2. Thanks to Mossop and Benjamin for helping me understand the Gecko SDK a bit better. There is no longer a requirement to copy mozilla-config.h (mistyped as 'mozilla-build.h' in my last post, heh). To build a binary component you simply:
- Download the Gecko SDK, place it anywhere you like.
- Download the starter kit and unpack it into your extension (it'll create a src directory).
- Run 'make sdkdir=/path/to/sdk install' inside the src directory.
Then restart Firefox (which you hopefully already have configured to point to your extension), and the new component will be automatically loaded. You can test by opening the error console and executing this line:
Components.classes["@mydomain.com/XPCOMSample/MyComponent;1"].name
If you get the name back, it's working! If you get an undefined property error then something is wrong. Let me know if it's something I can fix in the kit.
I hope this makes it easier for other people get started writing binary components. I particularly like that it doesn't require having full mozilla source/objdir trees, that should make it easier to integrate a new component into an already-existing extension.
Happy hacking!
Luis Villa — RHEL-izing Wikipedia
April 23, 2008 02:54 PM
I’ve been waiting for this. (It isn’t the first time; see wikitravel, but it appears to be a higher-profile publisher.) It is obvious that to some people and institutions, stable and vetted is good. It is true in software, and in specific areas (textbooks, guidebooks, possibly encyclopedias) it is probably true in written books as well, so it is only a matter of time before this model (take unpolished, cutting edge community version and turn it into something ‘enterprise-y’) becomes relevant in publishing too.
Now, hopefully wikitravel has an Istanbul book before the summer…
bryn — Mares eat oats and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy...
April 23, 2008 02:39 PM
In other news, I think thatagnellus just gave himself a new nickname. He signed an email L C (for Lambchop), which segues remarkably well in to 'Elsie'. I think that we shall have to use this for a time. *
margaretc whistles innocently and strolls off*
jeremy — Long Weekend, Cars, Bikes, and then Catching Up
April 23, 2008 02:55 AM
Since it was a long weekend from classes, I decided to take yesterday off of work and turn it into a long weekend in general which turned out to be a pretty good thing overall. After spending the day at the office on Friday where I successfully threw out a lot of crap from my desk in preparation for the office move, I came home and then we headed out to dinner with a friend of Kara's. Dinner was good, although for some reason, I couldn't fully get into enjoying it.Saturday, woke up in the morning and started the day off right with a nice long bike ride. Lots of people were out and a fair number of stronger riders within the group made for a good and spirited ride. Got in about 50 miles and felt like my legs were feeling okay after a few days of not. Then some time at Starbucks and a quick stop at the shop and then headed home. Kara and I then headed out to look a little more at cars since hers has been showing some signs of its age. Then, dinner with friends and eventually home to pack up what I needed to have for the race on Sunday.
Sunday was pretty much consumed by the race and not much else between travel time, food, etc. A good time was (I think at least) had by all. See my last post for the details around it.
Yesterday ended up turning into car day. After doing some additional preparation, we headed out again. And a few hours later, we had signed a chunk of paperwork to purchase a new Prius. Okay, that makes it sound like it was a spur of the moment thing, but really, it was the result of a while worth of looking into our options. The hatchback will be good for when I need/want to carry a bike and it's just me or just me and a passenger and it's also practical from other perspectives. Going for the nav system may not quite have been "practical", but it's at least fun ;) It's definitely the car to appeal to geeks. After all of that, we came home, had dinner and did some cleaning up around the house. Later in the evening, we finally got around to watching Juno which was fun.
Today, it was back to the grind of school and work. Although to be fair, I did start out Earth Day with a few of my classmates doing a loop up the bike path and back. Was good to get to show some more people what's out and about and the weather really is getting to be perfect. After that was diving back into the piles and piles of mail and bugs awaiting me. Made pretty good progress plowing through them, though. Also studied a bit for the ERBA quiz tomorrow and did some work for Tech Strategy. I'm pretty glad that tomorrow is the last day of ERBA as having one class less should help a bit for my sanity which is good as the continued march towards the Fedora 9 release isn't helping it any ;-) So maybe it'll balance out. Hopefully information on the summer class schedule will get sent in the next few days as I'd really like to figure out what my plan is for the summer.
But now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go relax and then try to get to bed a little early.
bryn — Inter-departmental politics
April 22, 2008 06:23 PM
or: "Oops!"Last year, I helped with a fairly large project that was ultimately owned by a different department. It was complex, expensive, time-consuming, and totally worth it, in terms of the end result. Our new asst. dean asked a question that related to this project (i.e. tell me if you have X piece of equipment, and this project does). I responded, and copied the main architect of the project in my response. Main architect then proceeds to blast me completely to pieces because I was apparently trying to piss him off.
He was in a bad mood already, and has never been one to respond gently if he feels strongly about something, but I was a bit taken aback by the vehemence of his response. I apologized immediately, but he did the IM equivalent of walking away - he logged out.
I can see this two ways. I was responding mainly because I know he's insanely busy and I'm not as busy, so I was just trying to save him the trouble. I guess he saw it as me trying to take away credit for his project in the eyes of the new asst. dean.
This is not something I'm good at - not the anger, I'm more or less OK with that, and I've known this guy for a couple of years now and I know he's got a pretty fiery temper. I'm not good at seeing whatever it was that made him mad. Part of me wants to go relate what just happened to someone over him (the asst. dean) and apologize that way, by saying that I wasn't trying to steal his thunder but was instead just trying to help him out. Something tells me that this would just make whatever-it-is worse, though, so I'm not going to do it.
But... it still bugs me that this guy is mad, is thinking whatever he's thinking, and assuming that I'm out to get him in some way when I was only trying to save him a bit of time. How do I get better at seeing this type of thing? What danger signal did I miss?
cec — Baby opossum pictures
April 22, 2008 01:10 AM
When it rains it pours. A month into spring and K hadn’t received any calls about rehabilitating animals until today when she got two. The first was about baby bunnies. K doesn’t take baby rabbits because too many of the stories end with “and then they died.” For example, “I was rehabbing some bunnies in the spare room, the dogs barked, the rabbits got scared and then they died;” or “I successfully rehabbed the bunnies, but they got stressed out while I was releasing them, they stroked out and then they died.” You get the idea. The other call was for a litter of opossums whose mother had died. She took those.
Since the new version of Wordpress has a gallery feature, I thought I would take some pictures at the most recent feeding and see how the gallery worked.
bryn — The bard has been reborn!
April 21, 2008 01:42 PM
If you're a lover of Shakespeare and a fan of Firefly, you should read this directly fromevilrooster Capt: A dozen years have pass'd since this took place,
And all that time hath Parliament kept hid
The secret of this world, till River here
Unearth'd it from their minds. They feared she knew.
And right they were to dread, since many more
Among the spinning worlds would know it too.
And someone has to speak for those now dead.
For divers reasons did you join my crew
But all have come together to this place.
I've in the past demanded much of you.
Today I ask yet more; perhaps for all.
For this I know, as I know anything:
That they will try again. Another world
Will be the lab for this experiment.
Or maybe they will sweep this landscape clean
And in a year or ten attempt again.
They'll swing back like the needle to the north
To the belief that they can better men.
And I hold not to that. Here from this grave
I will not run. I aim to misbehave.
- o0o -
Capt: There's more to flight than buttons, albatross,
More to the pilot's role than charts and maps.
You know the foremost rule of flying? Aye,
I know you do, since you know what I'll say
Before I part my lips.
Riv: I do, but yet
I like to hear you say it nonetheless.
Capt: 'Tis love. Though you know all the math the 'verse
Contains, if in the sky you take a ship unloved
She'll shake you off as sure as worlds turn.
Love keeps her in the air when she should fall
And tells you that she hurts before she keens.
It makes her home.
Riv: The storm is getting worse.
Capt: We will endure a while, till it disperse.
jeremy — Myles Standish State Park Road Race
April 21, 2008 03:22 AM
I headed down to Plymouth today to take part in the Myles Standish State Park Road Race as my first race of the season following up on racing last fall in Jamestown, RI. Kara and I picked up Kate and John on our way down to help keep things a bit more exciting. A stop at Starbucks in West Medford and we were on our way. Made reasonable time on the way down, though the park was a bit further from the highway than we expected so we didn't get there as early as I would have liked.Took my bike off the rack and managed to have my first slight mis-step of the day. In the process of pulling the bike off, I somehow managed to snap the plastic for my speed sensor -- oh well, I can go by feel mostly. Then, I went to top off the tires and the valve of the rear tube blew out. Not the way I wanted to start things out. Changed the tube out without any problems. I do think that I'm done with the Conti tubes, though -- this makes two of them that I've had valve related problems with. Between this and getting down a little late, I ended up not having as much time as I really kind of wanted for warming up. Did a quick warm-up around the parking lot just to mostly make sure everything was feeling good with the bike and with my legs. Then, we started staging. Where we sat on the line for the better part of 20 minutes. Which would have been great for getting warmed up.
In the Cat 5 under 35 field, there were about 25 people. From Quad, there was myself and Kenton. Given that we're both relatively new, we had a pretty simple plan for the race -- "try to stay with the pack, if we fall off, try to work together". As we started off, the pack got going at a pretty good clip, especially considering some of the potholes and upheavals in the pavement. But we managed to stick with the pack for a couple of miles. And then, someone decided to pick things up even more. I was pretty much at my limit and ended up falling back a bit as did a number of other people including Kenton. Of those that had fallen off, there were about five of us and at first, we did an okay job of working together, although everyone did pulls that were too long. As we got through the first lap (~ 5.25 miles), two of the five fell off the back including Kenton. I stuck on the wheels in front of me, though, and the three of us kept going for another lap or so. Then, one of the guys took off leaving just myself and one other guy. This was pretty much my "pack" until the last two miles when another two guys caught up to us and helped to get us energized again. Coming across to the finish, I managed to pull out the tiny bit I had left to keep from being passed by both of the two who had caught us.
I ended up in 18th with a time of 1:00:06 which I was pretty happy with for a course that totaled somewhere between 20 and 21 miles. And I managed to both have fun and learn some things for future races. Things to keep in mind for the future, even if they're a little obvious
- Leave more time for warming up. Yeah, I had to deal with some unfortunate bits, but leave time for those. My legs hurt for too much of the first lap of the circuit because I hadn't had a good warm up.
- Try to stay together better to work as a team better. And alternately (or better, in addition), try to get better cooperation with whoever else has fallen off the back. The latter sort of worked, but there was some lack of understanding on working together (I had a nice wheel, the guy I was riding with kept not drafting)
- If you lose the pack, it's really hard to catch back up. I didn't see them again.
- Come up with a more consistent training schedule so that I can be stronger and more consistent in a race.
- Racing is fun!
Kara took a lot of good pictures of the race as well -- link to come later once they're up. We then stuck around for the women's race (since Kate was in it) and thus also watched the 3 and 4 men's races. Kate probably had the best day of the Quadies coming in 6th in the women's race, which had 11 riders. The Quad riders in the Cat 4 race also were looking good. All in all, a good showing for Quad and a fun day for me. Now to figure out what race I'm going to do next...
bryn — A very pleasant break
April 21, 2008 01:17 AM
I had a fabulous time at St. Vitus' Dance yesterday, even though I didn't actually dance at all. I had a lot of lovely conversation with a large number of folks, and bought the most beautiful necklace I think I've ever seen. I had picked it up at one lady's merchant table, and I found that I absolutely could not put it down, so I bought it. This is very un-like me, but I'm so glad I did buy it, because it makes me very happy.Oh, if anyone found my greenish mug (it was glazed green, but there is some brown in the glaze), I think I left it on the table next to where Pippa was totting up. It may or may not have my name written on the bottom of it.
Today we went 'to bagels' - our weekly venture to Panera Breads where we eat with both of our moms and whatever other family members come along. For years, before my mom moved to NC, it was where my mom-in-law and her next-door neighbour had come to breakfast, and we had joined them when we were in town. Betty Lou had only stopped coming in November or so, when she started having breathing problems. Mom and my brother tend to stay only for a few minutes, in favour of going to the early UU church service, but we often hang out with the mom-in-law and chat and have a good time. Today Nate had decided he wanted to reprise a game he had invented a little while ago: 'Who wants a free animal?', and we had a very fun time with that. We came home and did some chores and got ready to go to yet another birthday party. We stopped off at Sears to check out washing machines on our way to the party, and I didn't like any of the prices I saw for any of the machines. They averaged $150-200 higher than I've been finding online for comparable models, so that might take a bit more research.
This kids' party was in an industrial park, where this company bought a large warehouse-type space and built several 2-story rooms. They brought in a bunch of very large inflatable play areas - slides, a bouncy castle/spacewalk, an obstacle course, and so on. If you haven't been to kids' areas at street fairs within the last 5-8 years, you won't have any idea what I'm talking about, so here are some examples. I went through the obstacle course once and down the 2-story slide once, and was totally wiped out. I resisted the ice-cream cake, though I ate 3/4 of a Double Decker after dinner (Nate had the other 1/4 of it).
Speaking of dinner, I hadn't planned on doing anything more than a bit of veg served with one of those rotisserie chickens that are always on sale on Sundays from HT, but Nate had other ideas. We were near the fish counter and Nate asked if we could buy some fish for dinner. He asked very politely and repeatedly, so the chicken went back and we bought some fish. I bought a packet of hollandaise sauce to go with it, and served that over broccoli as well as the salmon. Nate ate a great deal of it, and asked if we could get it again next week. I said sure, if he reminded us. I saved the leftover hollandaise frozen in a seashell mould like ice cubes so that we could eat little bits here and there instead of freezing it all in a big block which I'd never use again.
hsarik — Heading to the woods
April 20, 2008 12:14 PM
I'm about to head here with Jag on my first real vacation in years. We'll be back on Wednesday.
Before I head out, a short crafting update. I made another fabric collage, this time adding a bunch of beads, a wooden ladybug and some fabric paint for outlining the various parts (Jag's suggestion).
I liked the fabric paint so much, I added some to collage #1, and I think it's a big improvement. And now I think it needs some beads, too. 
I won't be making any collages during my vacation, but I did pack 4 knitting projects! 
bryn — If I knew where it was, they'd probably take my diploma away.
April 19, 2008 04:05 AM
Some time after I got my Master's degree, I managed to lose my UNC undergraduate diploma. This doesn't distress me terribly, since I know I went there, and they know I went there, and I don't particularly feel the need to prove it to anyone. Oh well.I mention this because I was a student, living on campus during Dean Smith's last NCAA championship.
Tonight, I proved to myself conclusively that I could not possibly care less about UNC basketball - my husband recognized the man at the restaurant where we were eating, and I could not pick him out of a small crowd of about 4 older men. I'm sure that UNC officials will be by in the morning to try to find my diploma for me.
thunder — Binary Components In Extensions
April 19, 2008 01:14 AM
So, you've decided you need a binary component in you add-on? Great! read this. Okay, that's a little long and complicated (sorry, Matt). How about this? Ah, that does look simpler, but it doesn't work on a recent Mozilla build, you say? Fear not, I have for you:
The Binary XPCOM Component Starter Kit
The actual component is the same from Alex Sirota, so do read his page, it has a ton of useful information. My version has an updated makefile (not yet tested on windows, I plan to do that soon), and is designed to be unpacked directly into your extension. It will create a "src" directory with sample sources.
What you need:
- An already set-up extension, already set up to be loaded on some profile you test.
- The gecko SDK. If you have a mozilla build tree, that's in objdir/dist/sdk
- A mozilla-build.h file, see this bug for details. Copy it into sdk/include for now.
- A mozilla build environment (compiler, etc).
Once you unpack the tarball into your extension, go into the src directory and run 'make sdkdir=/path/to/sdk'. If all goes well, it should build the component and place it into a platform-specific directory in your extension (did you know you can include multiple builds of a binary component, for each platform, in the same extension?).
It's pretty rough, I just spent some time on the makefile yesterday and haven't tried to make it work on Windows yet. But it's a start!
bryn — Betty Lou Brunson, 23 December 1915 - 16 April 2008
April 18, 2008 05:38 PM
A very close friend of my family passed away two days ago. She was 92, and had been moved to a rest home in the mountains, to be nearer to her niece.I didn't meet her until she was in her early 80s, but I've known her now for more than 10 years. She had lost her partner of 30-some years only a few years ago to cancer, and now she has succumbed to heart failure and just general old age.
bryn — More on the transfer tax
April 17, 2008 07:12 PM
Beating an almost-dead horse.
bryn — She said 'tool'
April 17, 2008 05:52 PM
More from the 'such a geek' file:This is a very nice tool - Robin Gallowglass has opened a site running Forge software and has made it available to anyone who wants to develop for SCA-type software projects.
jeremy — Late night hacking is oh such fun...
April 17, 2008 07:22 AM
Got on a bit of a roll tonight on fixing up some bugs from the Fedora 9 blocker list and so kept going. Haven't had a good productive late night hack sesssion in a while and it felt pretty good. Most of them were little things, but it's always the little bits of polish at the end that help to make a release good. I'm finally starting to feel better about the release as the bugs seem to be on the right trajectory at last and things are shoring up. *knock on wood*Hopefully a post about today's Tech Strategy discussion (about Danger) tomorrow as it was pretty interesting. But now, bed.
Luis Villa — new headshot
April 16, 2008 11:51 PM
I got interviewed last week for a linux.com piece. I also got LASIK over spring break, after 22 years of glasses. (It’s been a month without them and I’m still pretty psyched.) The result of the above two facts is a new headshot, in best chinposin style:
Next necessary step: new hackergotchi, possibly from this picture (almost certainly not from the chinposin one.)
(And yes, I’ll get one that is slightly less swarmy/businessy at some point. If that’s what you need, you probably still want this one. :)
bryn
April 16, 2008 08:30 PM
From the beeb, of all employers: Job application fail
bryn — More on the transfer tax
April 16, 2008 02:03 PM
Several people asked why I supported the transfer tax. I know I tend to be pro-tax in general, but that's at least partly because I'm so close to the ground in seeing where these tax revenues are going. The transfer tax in Orange County is slated toward school funding and growth and also potentially toward road improvements.The counties currently do not have anything to do with roads in a funding sense or an asphalt-moving sense, but county Commissioners do have input in to whether a certain project is desired or needed or not. In my magic crystal ball, I see writing on the wall that tells me that it is very likely that counties are going to have to start taking over both the funding and paving levels of local road building and maintenance. This is not a trivial change in policy. The counties have no structure in place to work on roads - no staff, no equipment, no nothing. And they're not going to get much money from the State, either. Within city limits, cities maintain their own local roads, and DOT maintains all state roads and any road that is not within a city's purview. But DOT is apparently (and gradually) going to stop doing the planning, funding, and asphalt-hauling for non-state roads (i.e. if it doesn't have a state designation like NC 54 or NC 86).
And find me a school district (at least in the Triangle) that doesn't have insane growth problems. CHCCS has built a new school every 2-3 years in the past 10 years, Orange County is building a new one every 3-4 years, and so on. Look at Wake County's overcrowding problem - why shouldn't the people who move in to an area pay a tax geared toward building local schools (and the roads to get their kids to them)?
Here's a link to a PolicyWatch article on different things to do with a transfer tax (it's a year old, but still quite relevant).
Here's another link about this issue, from the NC Association of County Commissioners.
As far as the comments -
ovrclokd, the developers would of course pass the cost on to you-the-buyer, and they're just as organized as the realtors are, so they'd fight it too. Can you tell me more about the stamp deed tax? What does it go to?Edited to add this link from Wake County's Wake Up Wake County
jeremy — Strategic Engineering
April 16, 2008 02:35 AM
Had an interesting presentation in today's thesis seminar. The speaker was Professor Olivier de Weck, who has a background in aerospace (fighter jets to be more specific). He talked a little about his background, but recently, his work has been on what he's termed 'strategic engineering' which is basically about designing your system so that you can adapt to future changes with a minimum of pain. In this, you can break it down even more into two pieces. The first is "Design for Changeability" -- this is something that is often done in the software world when you do things like design an API by taking into account how you might want to expand it in the future and also ensuring that you have a way of tracking those changes. The other piece is "Design for Commonality" -- and this is a large part of what the whole Fedora spins process is about as well as the variation within the RHEL product family. Basically, each provides the basic building blocks upon which you build more things on top of.Then, in contrast to many of the other speakers for thesis seminar, he did a pretty in-depth look at one of the SDM theses which he worked with. The subject of the thesis was change propagation in complex systems -- basically, they were looking at change requests over the life of a product and doing some analysis of grouping and where some of the loci of change were. This was really interesting to see as the application was far different from that of software and yet a lot of the patterns which I have anecdotally noticed from years of dealing with bugzilla emerged through their analysis of the data. From the initial work here, there's definitely a lot more which could be done and in a lot of ways, there's mounds of data that could easily be mined from various open source projects.
Very very interesting stuff and even if I don't end up going in one of these directions for my thesis, I think I need to spend some time reading the research that's been done previously.
hsarik — My next big knitting project
April 16, 2008 02:27 AM
...will not be one of these.
bryn — I hope this is the last post on voting today
April 15, 2008 11:52 PM
Please vote FOR the transfer tax. Here's a good rant on how it has gotten defeated before.
bryn — Environmental Advisors for the Democratic candidates for President
April 15, 2008 07:50 PM
Clinton and Obama on the Environment: A Conversation between their Environmental Advisors on how the candidates will handle emerging environmental issues.When: Friday, April 25th from 11:00am to 12:30pm with reception to follow
Where: Love Auditorium at the Levine Science and Research Center, Duke
University
bryn — For sale - treadle sewing machine
April 15, 2008 07:36 PM
Singer treadle sewing machine, $50.
jeremy — Clearly nearing release time
April 15, 2008 07:24 PM
We're clearly getting closer to time for a release. Lots of things breaking, tensions rising and the like. On the plus side, we're getting a lot fixed. On the downside, there are still a few scary things outstanding :-/
bryn — Random links
April 15, 2008 05:31 PM
An interesting thought-exercise in the Freakonomics blog this morning.Anyone want to go to Atlanta late in 2008? They've got a V&A exhibit coming, the terracotta Chinese warriors, and some high Renaissance art which will all be at the same museum at the same time.
This is a timely one - thanks to
lady_guenievre for the link. Nate has ratcheted up his independence a notch over the last few days. On Sunday, we were walking across a parking lot, and he got to the little planter bed at the end of the row of cars, looked both ways, and crossed the 'road' part to get to the store/sidewalk without waiting for us. He looked back at us to make sure we were still right there, but he's always waited before. I find this very encouraging.And finally, I think I'm going to have to start working on a code review process for PHP, or just for programming in general. We'll probably also implement a policy for outside programmers/contractors. Gotta love policy.
My mom-in-law and I were talking about programming, and amusingly enough to me, I was able to give her enough programming tips to get her started on writing her own perl script. This is great! She's working on a database project and they don't have a programmer, so she has to write scripts herself. Should be fun.
And finally, we're planning a trip to DC over Memorial Day weekend. Locals - good hotels/bad hotels/great restaurants/good things to do with a 4-year-old? We're taking Amtrak up, going to get around by Metro, and we're planning on seeing whatever on the Mall is open and we've been told that the Post Office Museum is a great place for kids. It'll be 5 of us - both moms are coming along too. Anyone want to meet for dinner one night (with or without moms and kid)?
bryn — Mixed messages
April 15, 2008 03:11 PM
I've got the Forecastfox Accuweather toolbar plugin for my web browser, which puts some weather information in the bottom frame of the window (the status bar). It has a couple of different symbols, including a green radar sweep and a few temp/forecast spaces, which are generally helpful. It's always funny to me, though, that the least little weather event is considered Alert!! worthy - for example, right now there's a red octagon with a big white exclamation point in it, which says 'Severe Weather Alert' when you mouse over it. However, it is currently sunny without the least hint of wind. The severe weather?URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGEYeah. I'll cover up my baby plants, and thanks for the warning, but I really don't need the big exclamation point.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE RALEIGH NC
403 AM EDT TUE APR 15 2008
...TEMPERATURES BRIEFLY AROUND FREEZING NEAR SUNRISE WEDNESDAY ARE
POSSIBLE.
.PATCHY FROST IS EXPECTED OVER PORTIONS OF CENTRAL NORTH
CAROLINA LATE TONIGHT... AND TEMPERATURES BRIEFLY AROUND FREEZING
NEAR SUNRISE ARE POSSIBLE.
For tornadoes, yes, please. For flash floods, yes. But for a brief possible frost 20 hours from now? No, thanks.
bryn
April 15, 2008 01:44 PM
I really wish that campaigns haven't become a political popularity contest. My co-board member Bernadette Pelissier has been tirelessly giving of her time for years, serving on board after b