05/27/2010

Yesterday Laralee and I sat down to play Mario Kart– still my favorite video game of all time. As we started up the game, an announcement popped on the screen: we’d now played 3,600 times and that qualified us for a new vehicle!

It was called the Spear. I jumped on it with Rosalina, but it kind of sucked.

I guess what struck me was that we’ve played Mario Kart 3,600 times. I shudder to think how many hours that is. And yet… it’s kind of cool.

05/21/2010

In a discussion about online storage in a Linux mailing list I read, there was a great comment about how to get more efficient backups than pushing hundreds of gigabytes of data to the web:

I think just backing up to /dev/null is probably cheaper and quite a bit faster, since it will all be local data transfer and not over the internet.  /dev/null seems to have quite a bit of space in it, from what I can tell.  Haven’t tested my backups yet, though.  Probably ought to do that some time.  I believe that /dev/random is the proper read device for that.  They say restores take a while, but I’m sure I can live with that.

Okay, I admit, you have to know what Linux device files are to get the joke, but trust me that if you do, it’s really funny.

05/18/2010

Today’s journey into Wikipedia took me into particle physics, where I learned about something called neutral particle oscillation, known less formally as “flavor oscillation”. It’s a condition where certain subatomic particles actually switch spontaneously between their matter and antimatter states. In most cases the switch occurs trillions of times every second, and eventually the particle collapses into a more stable state (usually a different particle, releasing a quanta of energy or another particle).

There was a time long ago when I might have been able to make sense of the quantum mechanical equations related to this:

But that time has long past. Now I just sort of skim the eigenvalue equations and trust that the guys in the white lab coats know what they’re talking about. Pretty cool stuff.

05/18/2010

Today Laralee took the van into her favorite auto shop for a tuneup, and mentioned that the front driver-side tire seemed a little flat. After a bit of investigation, the mechanic discovered a fairly large nail embedded in the tire.

We just took a 1,900-mile trip to Missouri and back, and the nail was in the tire the entire time. Now that’s a good tire!

05/09/2010

Remember the much-maligned talking Barbie doll who said “Math is hard… let’s go shopping!”? Ahh, those were good times.

Fox news needs to go shopping, I guess.

05/09/2010

For some reason, when we go on family trips they tend to be epic.

Last month we toured the deserts of Utah, ending up in St. George in the far southwest corner. The total distance was about 1,600 miles.

This week we’re heading to St. Louis, which is about 900 miles each way.

Our plan for early June is even more ambitious: Denver to Phoenix, hang for a few days, then west to San Diego and Sea World, north to Los Angeles and its beaches, up through Las Vegas, and back home to Denver.

On the map it’s 2,500 miles, but when you add all of the driving around the cities and so forth we’re probably going to hit 2,800. Not quite as epic as the famous 4,000-mile Seattle trip we made nine years ago, but still a lot of pavement to cover.

It makes our Yellowstone trip this August seem short by comparison: only 1,200 miles.

Although at times it might be nice to fly, the cost for all five of us is prohibitive. Plus, don’t get me started about the farce of traveling on the airlines these days. But all in all, I think driving is a great way to see the country. You really get to see the landscape change around you, and stop to see interesting or unusual places you might otherwise never think about.

I’m the kind of person who’s all about the journey, but Laralee is all about the destination. It makes for an interesting mix on these odysseys.

Luckily we have an Odyssey. Hah! Get it?

05/06/2010

Alex and I are considering joining a local Tae Kwon Do class, so we went to the dojo tonight to see what it was like. It turns out we were told the wrong time, so when we arrived it was time for a kickboxing class. We shrugged and decided to participate anyway.

We worked on a few punches and kicks, then did some core strength exercises, then reviewed some self-defense moves, and then did more core strength stuff. And after that, some core strength stuff. All I can say is I apparently don’t have a lot of core strength. I’m flexible– I had no problem doing all the bends and stretches– but when it came to the bicycle moves and leg lifts, I was straining.

After an hour (we thought the class was only half an hour) we were pretty tired, but both decided it was a good time. We’re going to see if we can actually show up for tae kwon do in the next few days, and figure out if we want to get in the program.

05/03/2010

Last week Comcast was awarded the Golden Poo Award for being the “worst company in America”.

They’re certainly earning that award today. I’m trying to update the credit card information on my account so I can actually pay them for their service, and after 30 minutes and about six transfers between agents, I’m still working on it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

05/02/2010

So some whack-job tries (and fails) to blow up a car bomb in the middle of Times Square. It was kind of a surprise, but I must say the response of the government is– sadly– completely unsurprising.

Of course they’ve labeled this a “terrorist incident” because these days, anything remotely dangerous must be the work of the boogeymen terrorists. There are no longer unbalanced individuals with a vendetta against the world, or just having a bad day. Every bad thing that happens, or almost happens, or is even just bouncing around the head of someone who’s particularly grumpy, is now a terrorist incident.

That notwithstanding, this scare gives the government the perfect excuse to expand the surveillance society they’re so keen to build. From a New York Times article:

The police department has been planning a high-tech security network for Midtown Manhattan involving surveillance cameras, license plate readers and chemical sensors… the network would use public and private security cameras and license plate readers and would be able to record and track every vehicle moving between 34th and 59th Streets, river to river.

Every vehicle. In the heart of New York City. It staggers the mind to consider how much information would be collected to facilitate this. Thousands (tens of thousands?) of security cameras will be needed, not to mention vast computation and data storage capabilities. Everyone in Manhattan can kiss their privacy goodbye.

But the real kicker for me is this move– like so many measures enacted by the government in the past decade– will most likely be completely useless. From the same article:

It was not clear whether it could have prevented the attempted car bombing in Times Square on Saturday night. Because neither the SUV used in the attempt nor the license plate on it had been reported stolen, it would not have raised any immediate red flags.

So we’ll spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, employ a huge staff, monitor millions of people, and get absolutely nowhere.

Stop the madness. Please.