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haineux's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 9:58 am |
| | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | | 10:01 am |
| | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | | 1:29 pm |
| | Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 | | 12:47 pm |
Your Moment of Gratitude, aka, "So You Think YOUR life is tough"
(Names/details changed to protect the innocent. Besides which, I don't know all the details and have probably gotten some of them wrong.) I was having a blah morning. Nothing especially wrong, other than the usual slight back pain, tiredness that indicates that the operation I had wasn't enough, feeling fat and unaccomplished. WHINE WHINE. Then my friend just called. Still hasn't found work after getting laid off from GiantComputerCo. Spouse unemployed also. Prospects of work are pretty much non-existent until things get a lot better. Meanwhile, they have sold their house and moved, which is generally a good thing, but it totally freaked out the child, who has been in and out of mental hospital a few times this summer. Kid is in first grade, and on adult dosages of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs. (Oh I agree, "kids should not be put on drugs," but after the fourth or fifth time the kid has become injured destroying the doors and windows of the house, one tends to reconsider.) Interesting thing about moving across county lines: any public services support involves getting Forms A-ZZ/2, bringing them to Line 7, and starting over. And naturally, if you call 911 to report your child is setting fire to the house, this involves a lot of attention from the police department, and not the friendly kind. (Makes sense, of course. Protect and Serve the COMMUNITY, not necessarily YOU PERSONALLY.) "Sure you still want to have kids?" "Uh..." Friend goes on to say that child is mostly quite happy, super-brilliant, composing and performing music, reading at a high school level, etc. "When (she) is good, (she) is very, very good." So. You think YOUR day sucks? Well, I wouldn't presume to say that you're wrong, but I certainly was. I am going to go get some food, take a walk, call my Mom, and my wife, and thank my lucky stars. | | Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | | 4:10 pm |
Why The Internet Is The Best Thing Ever
When someone hands me this blog entry, where we are told that iLife ’09 is "More of the same, only better," downplaying the immense amounts of work required to make location tagging and face recognition work in a seamless, classy, fun way ("Microsoft first offered facial recognition search a half decade ago..."), I can respond by posting this picture:  That really sums it up. Oh, there's more to be offended at, in that blog entry, but it's all pretty much the same. Not even better. | | Saturday, June 27th, 2009 | | 12:07 pm |
Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies
A long time ago, I spent way too much time at the college newspaper, interacting with many of these fine objects/processes which are now obsolete. http://www.drawger.com/?what=shows&show_id=32Usually at 2 a.m. on the weekend, your favorite Rapidograph pen clogged up. The first step always involved shaking it in little rapid vertical movements (hence the name?) until (a) the ink started flowing, (b) a big blob of black ink landed in the middle of your art, or (c) depending on your condition, you stabbed the point right into your wooden drawing board.Note that stabbing the point into the drawing board was usually not fatal. On the other hand, disassembling the pen to wash it, quite often, was. | | Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | | 1:27 pm |
Newest Apple Phone Too Cool for a Name
In a move that puzzled fans and made critics chortle, Apple announced that it had changed the name of its current smash hit phone, from "iPhone 3G S" to " iPhone 3GS". When asked why the change, Apple PR Spokesperson Katie Cotton said, "Well, we haven't actually changed the name of the product, just what the name is called." After the army of Apple rumors site bloggers took time to read the above-cited URL, the exceptionally bright and dashingly handsome Nick de Plume of Think Secret burst into laughter, then asked Cotton, "So what is the actual name of the product?" Cotton fixed a derisive gaze on the blogger and replied, "I'm sorry, you're just not cool enough to be trusted with that information," and left the room, whereupon the doors and windows were secured by slowly-descending stainless steel sheets, and then the room lurched as it was launched into space. A tiny flare was the only acknowledgement the sun gave when the pod hit its photosphere. Cult of Mac blogger Leander Kahney, who missed the meeting due to what he has called "a very important meeting" before mumbling something about what sounded like "heroic instance run," has been publishing a months-long tribute to his fallen comrades by publishing old columns of theirs intermixed with "notes" he discovered in their trash. He promises that he will reveal the actual name of the iPhone 3GS some time this summer, once he receives confirmations from several sources, of course. | | Friday, June 12th, 2009 | | 9:58 pm |
My newest cocktail: The Enormous Pair of Scissors
2 ounces bourbon 2 ounces triple sec 4 dashes mint bitters 12 ounces club soda Build and stir. (Alternately, use one ounce triple sec and one ounce (white) creme de menthe.)  Name inspired by the BBC TV programme "Look Around You," episode " Iron." | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 4:08 pm |
Actually, most of you want at least some of these
I suspect more than a few of you qualify for at least some of these badges. Even if not, you will almost certainly find the page amusing and totally worth the click: http://www.scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/The "I Work With Way Too Much Radioactivity, and Yet Still No Discernible Super Powers" merit badge amuses me. If you qualify for the "Have Violated the Posterior of an Animal in the Name of Science” badge, I probably don't want to know. | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | | 3:23 pm |
At WWDC today
We're doing Installer lab at 5 on the first floor section D. | | Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | | 11:56 pm |
Happy birthday to me
We had a swell party, and now I am seeing this weblog, and there's this, which is apparently entitled: it's like the baby is reaching out to shoot that guy... courtesy http://www.sorryimissedyourparty.com/2009/02/rc-cola.htmlIt is like the best possible picture ever. As you stare and stare, more and more details are revealed. That guy is holding a forty and a pepto bismol. And that shelf: Sparks, PBR, Sparks, PBR in a bottle. Wow. | | 2:27 pm |
Five minute hack dumb question
I have a quartz composition that plays a movie's video stream, modified. I can play this composition in QuickTime Player, or in Quartz Composer's workbench editor. Looks groovy! How can I make this composition play the movie's soundtrack, unmodified, while it is showing the modified video, preferably in sync?
| | Monday, June 1st, 2009 | | 10:14 pm |
Throat update after 9 weeks
So, to fix my sleep apnea, I had an operation known as "U.P. Flap with Tonsillectomy." Let me summarize the experience. First of all, this is Full On Anesthesia, so I have almost no recollection of anything before the procedure started, never mind the procedure. I was irrationally afraid of that, and I actually still have this irrational fear even though I know for a fact that anesthesia kicked my ass all the way to the moon and back. I have no recollection of a gas mask or even injections once the IV was started. The first 23 hours of recovery were in a post-op alcove bed thing, and powered by copious amounts of Fentanyl brand opiate. Fentanyl is 100% perfect excellence in the pain-elimination game. Ask for it by name! The next two weeks were rather unpleasant, because when I first woke up, I had to swallow some liquid Vicodin, and that hurt. And then the Vicodin took a while to kick in. But once it did, it was 80% as good as the Fentanyl. After a few days, liquid nourishment was possible when fully Vicodin-ized. I couldn't have solid food for almost two weeks, and there were also some tricks to swallowing during that time. After two weeks, the pain was almost gone, and the major concerns were eating and drinking carefully to avoid stuff going up the nose, and being aware of the stitches, but not really bugged by them. The surgeon suggested taking two weeks off from work. It was a very good estimate. That's what I did. Yes, I looked at my throat. It wasn't all that bad. Some scabs, some redness, and a distinct lack of uvula (it was thinned and folded up to the roof of my mouth). Some people have spontaneous bleeding. I didn't, or maybe it was minor enough that I didn't really notice. Around this time, I noticed I was very tired much of the time. This, apparently, was because I was still having some apnea, because 1) I did not have anything done to my tongue to keep it from falling back and blocking my airway, and 2) the palate was still pretty swollen from the surgery. Around 4 weeks, I was still tired, so my surgeon told me to go back on my CPAP machine, at a reduced pressure, to address the apnea for a few months. This was probably the most surprising disappointment of the whole thing. I really did not want to go back to that machine, and I did not want to travel with it yet again, but I had to. Alas. At eight weeks, my surgeon told me I didn't have to see her again until 6 months post. Between 3 and 4 months post, I will go get another sleep study. Undoubtedly, my tongue will still be falling back and blocking the airway, because I didn't get any surgery to fix that, so I am planning on having to do something to address that. Luckily, in the last decade or so, oral appliances have improved greatly in this area. They now make upper and lower mouthpieces, with wedges that slide the jaw forward when you close your mouth. The wedges are adjustable, so you start with a moderate setting, and increase over the next month or two, until you are used to the sensation and it doesn't hurt, so you end up with your mouth closed, and the jaw forward, and all is well. If that doesn't pan out, there are other solutions: outpatient "radiotherapy" to cook some of the tongue's internal tissue, or, if that would not be enough, fully anesthetized surgery to move the tongue forward by one of several not-very-invasive and rather clever methods involving tightening ligaments. Apparently some people get their jaws reshaped by having a surgeon break the bones and then pin them into a newer, better shape. I had a friend have that done, and honestly, it was much less horrible than I thought it was going to be. But I am glad I won't be doing it, anyway. Any regrets? Only that I haven't had my big payoff (getting rid of the CPAP machine) yet. Would I do it again? Definitely, even though there are still times when stuff goes up my nose. By the way, there are three areas that cause obstructive sleep apnea: nasal turbinates, palate, and tongue. I already had the turbinate surgery, and now have had the palate surgery. I am hoping not to have to have tongue surgery. Also, the official medical wisdom is that the CPAP machine is the best treatment because it tends to be very very effective for long-term treatment. Surgery is usually for people who can't stand the machine. | | Friday, May 29th, 2009 | | 12:08 pm |
PixelQi announces "drop in" screen product for netbooks
A lot of people are buzzing that this display might bridge the gap between netbooks and portable digital book readers, like the Amazon Kindle. Here I'll explain why the display is, in fact, worthy of such buzz, by differentiating it from e-Ink and regular-old LCD displays. e-Ink is a technology where black or white particles float up to the surface of the "paper," and external light gets reflected, just like traditional paper-and-ink. The obvious advantage is that the display requires zero power except when changing pixels, and the obvious drawback is that changing pixels takes appreciable time, since particles have to float around. Also, e-Ink displays are almost entirely black-and-white -- the latest models barely have shades of gray. However, e-Ink is very very paper-like -- the surface of the display is matte, and the ink is very very black and matte, rather like a top-quality book. LCD screens work by darkening a pixel in front of a backlight. The obvious advantages are that they can be updated very rapidly, and they can also show millions of colors. The obvious disadvantage is that they require power all the time, although >90% of the power draw is to run the backlight (usually 5 - 10 watts on a laptop). PixelQi's 3qi display is an LCD screen with a mirror behind half of each pixel, so each pixel can be illuminated either by the backlight, or by the reflection of ambient light. With the backlight off, the display can show many shades of gray, update very rapidly, and run on a tiny fraction of a watt. Because the new PixelQi screen is an improved version of the screen in the OLPC XO, this ambient light mode is quite usable in almost all circumstances that people typically read books or use computers. It should even be clear and legible in a typical evening living room, and look similarly white to most kinds of paper. (It won't be as viscerally paper-like as e-Ink. It will have the typical "matte LCD" surface which is a bit shinier than matte paper -- similar to glossy magazine paper, and a better black than LCDs, but not as black as e-Ink.) The current PixelQi product is designed as a "drop in replacement" for the typical 10.1" netbook screen, and should make it easy for users to get twice as much battery life from their netbooks -- as long as the user can live with grayscale, they won't need the backlight. The OLPC XO also has a few more tricks up its sleeve to reduce power even further: its CPU, network, and display subsystem are separate, so if the user is "just reading text," the CPU and network can shut down for a while, reducing the entire power load of the computer to a small fraction of a watt. (Mac Powerbooks used to do this, because the PowerPC CPUs had a "nap mode" that made this simple. Unfortunately, Intel laptops haven't implemented this.) PixelQi hopes to bring this kind of system design to laptop makers eventually, by providing a screen with its own controller and memory, but for now, making the technology as simple to adopt as possible is a wise idea. | | Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 | | 10:04 am |
| | Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | | 4:36 pm |
Cavatelli and me
Some time in college, I started eating the unique pasta known as cavatelli. Cavatelli contains ricotta cheese in the dough, along with "soft" flour (low in protein and gluten, unlike the typical high gluten durum wheat pasta flour), and egg. Structurally, the dough is cut into thick (1/8 inch) disks (1.25 inches in diameter) and warped into U-shaped rods with a texture on the outside. "Like Gnocchi, but different." Cavatelli does not taste cheesy; the ricotta seems to prevent the pasta from becoming too heavy and chewy. Now, to compare cavatelli to other pastas, think of a continuum that runs from the lightest, fluffiest cloud-like gnocchi you can imagine, and at the other end, a bunch of spaghetti that has cooked through, but gotten stuck together. (Typical, store-bought gnocchi is usually somewhat light, but gluey.) Cavatelli would be in the middle somewhere, but closer to the spaghetti than store-bought gnocchi.) Cavatelli can be found next to the frozen ravioli in almost all grocery stores in the Greater Boston area, also in Rhode Island, and perhaps in various "little Italy" neighborhoods, but practically no place else. If you want to make your own, here's an excellent recipe with useful pictures. I can vouch that it works well, although the fresh cavatelli that this makes are very light, almost like gnocchi. Maybe use a little less ricotta if you want that chewiness. The next question is what to do with cavatelli once you have them. Most people, it seems, douse them with red sauce, with or without meat. Some use a cheesy white sauce. I would always cook them in salty water, and add butter and some grated cheese, but recently I started looking for new ideas, and discovered a lot of recipes that served them in broth with broccoli. This is now my new favorite thing: a broth made by adding "better than bullion" lobster and chicken flavor to the pasta water, a little Wondra flour if I want a sauce instead of a broth, and a whole lot of broccoli. The other day, we went to a crawfish boil restaurant, where they serve the mudbugs boiled in a plastic bag in broth with piquant spices, garlic, and butter. I added the leftovers to the above, FOR THE WIN. Now I am investigating cavatelli, broccoli, and langostinos in a lobstery broth. I believe this will produce a new level of happiness heretofore undiscovered in man. | | 9:04 am |
Coolest Thing Ever, Today: Bacterial Orchestra
I don't have a lot of time to write about this today. But you should hit their web page and watch their video. http://www.bacterialorchestra.com/
Bacterial Orchestra is a musical society -- more than a few iPhones are gathered near each other, and they listen to each other and the environment and make sounds in a musical fashion based on rules. The rules evolve via genetic algorithm-type programming. I am probably going to be more impressed with the idea of this project than the actual results, but I tried to write something like this at the Media Lab, many years ago, and never got anywhere, so good on them. I am anxious to try their stuff, see their code, and use it to lure Brian Eno to coffee. | | Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | | 9:53 pm |
Never could not gonna ever gonna be your...
Well I told you, And I don't know if it got through, But I'm not your picnic ape. Not your picnic ape! I like luncheons, And I might like a good buffet, But I'm not your picnic ape! Not your ... ! When you go on a picnic, Don't forget the ape. I'd love to go on picnic, But I am not an ape! Not me! Well I told you... That I never could not gonna ever gonna be your picnic ape. Not your picnic ape! | | Friday, May 15th, 2009 | | 11:17 am |
| | 11:11 am |
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