Luca Masters' Blog

Homeopathy

2011-12-10T19:02:00.001Z

So...here are three things:* What I grew up hearing referred to as 'homeopathy', wherein you give small doses of poison (or typically harmful in normal quantities) to stimulate the immune system. My friend backs this up as what she still knows it as.* What, for the past 5-10 years I've heard the term 'homeopathy' used to refer to every time save for twice in the past couple weeks: diluting a

Full name

2011-09-24T21:01:00.001Z

Blair: What's your middle name, Luca?Me: Luca Kaceem Butler Masters.Katie: What?!Luca: Yeah.Katie: That's awesome!Good job, parents.

Real-Life Problems in the Government

2010-08-31T23:11:00.004Z

I had a training at Region XIII (the government agency that interfaces between schools and the Texas Education Agency) today and the guy leading the training asked us, as a subset of the thousands of people who can edit student data in the state-wide database to voluntarily adopt a policy that would help prevent what is apparently a real, actually-occurring problem: EDIT WARS of STUDENT RECORDS

Response to Mankiw's Spam Tax

2010-05-01T18:27:00.005Z

Your post advocates a( ) technical (X) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilanteapproach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses( ) Mailing

Correlation does not imply causation

2010-04-05T02:53:00.008Z

I got up in them middle of the night to write this and it was all muddled. Then I got up in the middle of another night thinking 'This makes no sense!' And it didn't, because I had written P(causation|corrrelation) = P(causation) - P(correlation|no causation). Stupid me. I'll correct it later. In short: They're not independent, as correlation is a prerequisite for causation. P(correlation) is not

Notes on sanitation

2009-12-20T14:23:00.002Z

Bill Riiff, the store’s manager and a former air traffic controller in the Air Force, stepped into the circle, holding high a pump of hand sanitizer.“Swine it up!” he bellowed.Each employee simultaneously extended an arm, palm up, as Mr. Riiff squirted a dollop of goop into one hand after another to help stave off the H1N1, or swine flu, virus. (Emphasis added.) Hand santizer kills bacteria. If

Bill Joy's Nightmares

2009-11-09T22:11:00.003Z

In Outliers, Gladwell quotes Bill Joy commenting about how they had nightmares about forgetting to go to class or forgetting they were even enrolled in a class.I've had multiple 'Oh, snap! Wasn't I enrolled in an econ course?' moments toward the end of the semester. In fact, this year I've had at least one dream about completely forgetting about a biology course and a philosophy course for pretty

Life expectancy

2009-10-31T20:44:00.004Z

Science and technology are the only potential non-catastrophic solution to all our problems (and have been for thousands of years).People don't accept this. Our current problems (global climate change being the big one nowadays) seem to be by-products of past sci+tech solutions to problems such as, oh, dying. But unless we want to experience massive (multi-billion person) die-offs and a reversion

College gets stupider

2009-08-30T18:43:00.003Z

I had some stupid assignments in college, and, yes, freshmman health had some of the worst offenders. But this takes the cake. My brother's assignment is to:1. Add specific numbers to the top of his mobile phone and show the contacts to the professor. (I, for one, have no mobile phone. When I did have a mobile phone, it was my private property and NOT subject to search my professors and the phone

Argument by Analogy

2009-07-03T21:09:00.004Z

I argue by analogy a lot (though less than I used to). People are stupid, and analogies provide a very pithy way of demonstrating why what they just said is really, really stupid. Alas, they're pithy because the working premise is implicit, and they're doubly ineffective when they mention Hitler. Consider this discussion I've had ever so many times:Foo: Bar punched me in the face just for kicks.

Context-free problems are context-free

2009-05-21T20:09:00.003Z

In his book 200% of Nothing, Dewdney comments on how stupid American students in 1982 had trouble with this problem: An army bus holds 36 soldiers. If 1,128 soldiers are being bussed to their training site, how many buses are needed.Apparently only 70% of American students were able to get as far as 1,128/36 = 31 1/3. Additionally, however, only a third of those students when on to get the

Oh, luddites, how you confound and amuse me.

2009-05-16T19:39:00.004Z

Back in the day, if we wanted to transfer data between our computers (avoiding the slow Internet) we would just go over ethernet. Nowadays, we go over the wifi.At one point in time, we had a very crappy laptop lacking a network or wifi card. Oh, and the CD drive was broken. I put some stuff on it using 3.25" disks and later using a flash memory stick (though the laptop was running 98, so I first

Desired feature

2009-04-18T16:27:00.002Z

Why must windows be quadrilaterals? When I have mplayer in the upper right corner of the screen, I want Firefox to take up the other three quadrants. Sure, it will mess up a lot of layouts designed for quadrilaterals, but if I want it to flow that way, whose to tell me no? X? Gnome? Firefox?Wizzeak.

My coworkers are stupid.

2009-04-06T17:43:00.002Z

Thursday night: 'I don't see why you would bother saving money. We're making so little right now, any savings you make will be completely drowned out by future savings when we get higher paying jobs.'Friday night: 'Oh, my god, if we don't get paid early, I won't be able to pay my rent.'So you don't have enough money and can't see how having MORE money could solve your problem? SRSLY?For someone

Officer Reports

2009-02-14T15:13:00.005Z

Last meeting, we decided on a new way to do officer reports: email.But people objected to getting eight email messages every other week. (An average of 0.57 messages per day, tending toward the last couple days before the meeting. OMG, so much email!) Sign up for the digest version of the mailing list, maybe? No, instead officers will all send their reports to the Trustee who will manually

Dishes and Hobart

2009-02-14T00:37:00.003Z

[For non-Senecans: The Hobart LX-18 is our sanitizer. You wash your dishes, put them in the Hobart tray, and put it into the Hobart when full. We have two Hobart trays so we can have one go through (which is very fast) while one is being loaded.]Dear Senecans,You have just washed your dishes (Thank you! You are my hero!) and now are faced with a choice. The Hobart tray by the sink is full. The

Dumpster

2009-02-03T00:13:00.004Z

Last night, our dumpster was emptied.However, there's been a mattress standing up behind it for a while, and apparently it fell down while the dumpster was being dumped.Result: very wobbly dumpster on a springy mattress on raised concrete, so anyone (well, many people) could just tip it over into the street. Maybe it would fall itself once filled (as filling would mostly be toward the front,

80 pounds of pasta

2009-01-26T20:37:00.002Z

Our Kitchen Manager has ordered 80 pounds of pasta. A gallon vanilla extract. I don't know what else.When I bring pasta for lunch, I usually have about 0.44 pounds (precooked weight), so 80 pounds is enough to feed me for 180 workdays. The vanilla extract a good deal longer.(Pasta from Sysco is about a third the cost of HEB [which I guess is cheaper than Costco].)

Mankiw misses the point

2009-01-24T17:57:00.004Z

Greg Mankiw's latest blog post asks (for classroom discussion) the macroeconomic stimulus difference between a bank using bailout money to pay Joe the Plumber to renovate their own bathrooms vs. lending the money to Bob the Baker to hire Joe the Plumber to do the same in his own home.This is posed in response to Obama's complaint that the banks are using bailout money in the former, 'wasteful'

GM

2009-01-09T01:09:00.004Z

GM says this:19 of our 2009 models have an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better2 — more than Toyota, more than Honda.For 2009, we offer more hybrid choices than any other manufacturer. We currently have six hybrids available. Well...yeah. Toyota and Honda made a few really good models. GM makes a million so-so models. Some of them are reasonably fuel-efficient. ('11 of our last 13 new-product

RFID

2008-12-08T00:12:00.002Z

So, Michael (who works in the Archæology library at UT, I believe) apparently mentioned RFIDing all the books in the library to a guy there, and got a lecture on why he was stupid for even talking about it.The recap Bryan (and I, being nosy) received was: 'Michael, there are twelve million volumes in the library.'There are numerous reasons why this is a bad objection: Firstly, have the publishers

Cap and Trade: The Punctuation Market

2008-11-23T19:02:00.004Z

A friend of mine just exceeded her lifetime allotment of exclamation marks. She can try purchase more punctuation credits, but exclamation marks are in high demand, especially during the holidays.Comma credits are volatile, due to the competing forces of texters (who avoid most forms of punctuation) and comma splicers. (This latter force also keeps the cost of semi-colon credits extremely low;

Kiva

2008-11-23T03:05:00.005Z

The Peace Corps is considered good diplomacy. Send Americans over to help community development and other countries start to like us.Tommy Thompson wanted to send medical ships around the world to serve as roving hospitals for poor nations. Medical diplomacy.Kiva, similarly, is about diplomacy. I don't know if donating money that way is as beneficial as donating to PATH (though you have a good

Reducing solid waste

2008-11-22T16:07:00.003Z

Some time ago, Austin's mayor signed the Urban Environmental Accords and now we seem to have the goal of achieving zero solid waste by 2020. Austin's Solid Waste Services has a list of suggestions (PDF) on how to reduce your waste. It includes:[at home] Buy in bulk and leave packaging at store[at your school/business/place of worship] Buy in bulk and ask suppliers to take back packaging Okay,

Scholarship

2008-11-22T01:51:00.001Z

I want full scholarships to be a student for the rest of my life. Surely that somehow is a worthwhile investment for society. I'll make insightful comments and ask insightful questions during class, enriching the learning experience for my fellow students.

Facebook advert

2008-11-20T23:41:00.003Z

I just saw an advert on Facebook: Buy rare Hubble photosBuy high resolution fine art images printed and framed from rare NASA Hubble Space Telescope archives. Free shipping. Gee, I'm pretty sure all NASA images (and all Hubble images, obviously) are PUBLIC DOMAIN.But best of all, the advert has an example image: the Eagle Nebula image, probably most famous and un-rare Hubble image ever.

Dear ICC

2008-11-15T13:18:00.005Z

Oct 31: ICC General Membership Meeting. Hey ya’ll, the meeting is scheduled for Sat Nov. 15th. Be there, or be tagged “uncooperative.” --Jenn from the office Great! I'll be there. What time? And where?Nov 12: Get hyped for some ICC charades at the General Membership meeting on November 16th on the deck of Hillel from 2:30-4:30. -- ICC Ed. Coordinator Great! Where's Hillel? (Google gives the

Voting in Travis County

2008-11-01T20:14:00.004Z

So, we're using eSlate, (online demo available! In fact, part of my knowledge of the interface described below [such as write-ins] are derived from the demo, not trying it on the actual ballot) electronic voting with a very stupid interface.Inputs are:* A dial.* An 'enter' key.* 'Prev' and 'Next' keys.* A 'Cast Ballot' key.* A 'Help' button.You enter your 'access code' ([0-9]{4} or perhaps [1-9][

Fuel economy.

2008-10-25T01:40:00.002Z

Earlier I heard a car commercial trying to sound old-timey comment on how cars are approaching 5 mpg.Isn't it great how far we've come since the early days when we got under 5 mpg?Problem: The Ford Model T got 13-21 mpg, better than some modern vehicles (thought it drove slower, and the exhaust was much, much worse).

Actual post about my life instead of the economy or whatnot

2008-09-28T05:10:00.003Z

Earlier, I felt tingly, and then cold sweatish and then slight lightheadedness, so I was like, 'Hmmm...I'll be like that moron on Google's Testimonials page who thought she was having a heart attack so she finished walking home, Googled the symptoms, and then called an ambulance'.So I read the symptom list for heart attacks (which I already knew, but why not?), and was like 'Hmmm, that's me to a

98% Fat Free

2008-09-27T21:33:00.003Z

We got whole wheat tortillas that are labelled as being '98% fat free'. While true, I consider it dishonest because it's intended to be interpreted as significant.Whole milk is 96.3% fat free.I recently was buying bug spray and opted against the one that used West Nile Virus scaremongering to market itself.

Health cereal

2008-09-14T14:00:00.004Z

Premise: I currently lack any health problems associated with too much sugar.So when determining the healthfulness of cereal for me, sugar content is not much of an issue. What is relevant? Whether it's fortified with loads of vitamins and the like. All too often, the 'healthy' cereal isn't. It's pretty much just wheat (so, some niacin and/or iron + fiber and a little protein). The 'junk cereals'

Genetic diversity

2008-09-14T04:43:00.002Z

Haha. Re: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: 'Spitsbergen was considered ideal due to its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation.'Five days before it opened, Svalbard was hit by a 6.2 (Richter scale) quake. (Centred a couple hundred miles southeast, I believe.)Alles gut. Al Gore wrote about genetic diversity issues in Earth in the Balance. Worth reading. (I, sadly,

Dominican Republic

2008-09-14T04:30:00.003Z

When asked to name a country starting with 'D', my first thought is generally 'Dominican Republic'. When asked for another, I think 'Deutschland', then 'Denmark', and then 'Djibouti'. None of these require much thought for me.It seems, though, that you can safely assume that Americans will think Denmark first. At any rate, there's a fairly wide-spread game thingy that makes that assumption:'Write

This is not about the 'elephant'

2008-09-07T22:22:00.005Z

I love the Economist, but this article is so...I guess not condescending, but just so...not the way they should be. I guess because it's about tech?* 'a new web browser to rival that of Microsoft, called Internet Explorer (IE)'* 'when it crushed Netscape, an early browser.'* 'a rival web browser to IE, called Firefox.'This isn't so much that they're telling us these things, but the way they say

Cookie fail

2008-08-23T02:00:00.003Z

You know how recipes first list all the ingredients and then say 'Mix these two, and then add such and such' and the like? if you have sugar and butter, for example, you always mix them together first (or maybe with eggs if that's also an ingredient).Well, I usually don't get around to reading past the ingredients list until too late. And I don't worry about doing things in an order that makes

Excitement of the day

2008-08-17T20:08:00.003Z

OMG, I am delighted by how things just went down with the Hobart LX18H, Seneca's dish sanitiser. It's because I'm crazy. You don't care. So here's a related rant to keep you entertained. Or not.When loading silverware into the dishwasher or sanitiser, always put the pointy ends down. Because people trip and fall and gore themselves on pointed-up utensils and get blood all over the nice clean

Development

2008-08-16T23:45:00.003Z

Well, it's official: they've succeeded in replacing a parking lot with eight stories of people who own cars. What could possibly go wrong?My tiny one-way street now has two layers of cars parked on the far side, and by 'far side', I mean the right lane and the centre lane.I've never double-parked. It always seemed like something only a complete asshole or someone in an emergency situation would

Doesn't anyone understand the concept of time?

2008-08-10T03:27:00.005Z

My response to the title question1 was essentially 'Somewhat, yes', at which point I felt the need to define it as best I could.Time is a full-sized dimension for which causality, for the most part (as we typically perceive it, and as it causes our perception)2 is uni-directional.Traditionally I thought of space-time as four dimensions through which we were travelling at a constant speed, and

A Plea to all Senecans

2008-08-05T02:23:00.001Z

Last interim, every night before bed I would think to myself, 'Oh! We have a mouse!' So I would dash downstairs and put away all the loose food on the island counter. Then I'd wipe it off. Then I'd sweep.Then I'd go to bed.Unhappily, all this occurred around 9pm, long before the rest of the house slept, so every morning when I awoke, I'd find chips on the floor. Plates of crumbs on the counter.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-20T02:27:00.000Z

I just saw The Dark Knight at the IMAX. It was good. Afterwards, I was tempted to be a complete asshole and shout to all the people in line for the next showing 'Hey, Bruce Wayne is Batman!' Completely spoil the movie for them. But I didn't. I'm too nice.Anyway, this isn't much of a blog post, but I needed to post it. Trying to make sure I get a full 12 dollars of utility from that ticket.I

Buyout

2008-07-17T00:00:00.004Z

Yesterday Bush declared that the economy is 'strong and growing'. It took my friend Michael several minutes before he could stop laughing.But that Bush is insane is nothing new, and neither is his ability to make us laugh whilst dooming us to the grave. I'm here to talk about something else.Senator Jim Bunning is insane. This might be news to you because who the heck has heard of Sen. Bunning?

Well, that's fail: Obama and the FISA Amendment Act

2008-07-11T19:57:00.004Z

A few weeks ago, I finally joined MyBarackObama just so I could join the 'Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right' group. I muchly favour Obama over McCain and Hillary. I figured I'd also donate a bit of money to him iff he got it right.Apparently, somehow the registering failed and I didn't join the group. Fail. But at least my fail wasn't epic. Obama's was.If you

Gimmicks

2008-07-05T04:27:00.005Z

Last week, I was unfortunate enough to watch a bit of Fox News. It was immediately following McCain's energy speech, and they had BIll Richardson give a brief response. Basically, he kept saying McCain offered only 'gimmicks' while Obama had real energy policies.Of course, this was a short talking point, not a real argument, so he didn't really explain himself. One central thing was McCain's

Does everything happen for a reason?

2008-06-21T23:41:00.001Z

'Do you agree with the statement "Everything happens for a reason"?'Usually this question is religious in nature, and I disagree with it in terms of religious reasons, so 'no'.But obviously things have causes, so 'yes'. I don't want sciency people interpreters taking my answer to mean I'm not sciency.But quantum mechanics suggests things happen without causes, right? So 'no'.Yes => I sound

Genetics don't matter

2008-05-05T18:46:00.008Z

People at work were recently saying that they'd never donate sperm or eggs because there'd be a child with their genetics out there that they didn't know about. Upon my inquiring why that would matter, they essentially proclaimed that anyone who doesn't consider such a thing important is a bad parent. 'You came from my seed, but it doesn't matter.' == Bad parent.This has some obvious logical

Run for the cellar!

2008-04-29T00:37:00.002Z

I just saw a line of birds flying, but I saw them through some branches, and my first thought was 'COSMIC STRING!' But then the entire solar system wasn't immediately destroyed.So in retrospect, this is one time when I'm glad I was wrong.

Pizza

2008-04-13T16:49:00.003Z

I've been making calzone (and sometimes just bread, though it's a bit sweet) using this recipe for some time now. Yesterday, I actually used it for pizza, of all things. The best part about pizza (or calzone) is that you can use random toppings/fillings and they'll taste pretty good.Staples for pizza are baby spinach, mushrooms, and perhaps onions, but there's plenty more to try. Black beans are

Dogs and cats and their respective owners

2008-04-07T01:48:00.003Z

When you see a cat, you can pet it. It might be timid, or possibly even hostile, but the owner won't mind the least bit if you try to pet their cat, or even pick it up (so long as the cat doesn't mind). Cat owners tend to be sane, or at least not insane in the way dog owners sometimes are.On the other hand, many dog owners apparently object strenuously to people petting their dogs without asking.

You gotta do the cooking by the book

2008-02-24T02:59:00.006Z

You know how if you can't cook then you're too stupid to live?I was afraid I might be like that earlier today, but turns out I'm not.I made cinnamon rolls. But there are twenty people living here, so I doubled the recipe. Except:* I used two packets of yeast, probably making 2 or 4 tbsp instead of six.* I rolled the thing out in a messy non-rectangle.* I used Smart Balance instead of butter/

Science lies

2008-02-09T22:03:00.000Z

People are often complaining about the 'anti-science' attitude so prevalent in the US, but let's look at some scientific 'facts' and see how they stand up against basic common sense or simple tests:Spherical Earth Obviously false. I set out walking in a straight line, for more than an hour, and I didn't return to where I started. Additionally, I have friends who have been to the so-called '

My Day

2008-02-01T00:20:00.000Z

(This is what blog posts are supposed to look like. Stupid ramblings about my day.)This morning, I superglued my fingers together. I was trying to repair my earplugs, but the glue wasn't coming out, so I squeezed really hard, and it all shot out. Apparently the way superglue works is to heat way up and then rapidly cool down and stick. For fingers, this means blisters from the heat followed by a

My morning adventure

2008-01-29T08:06:00.000Z

Upon waking this morning, I glanced at my watch. '07:15am'. Oh, gevalt! I overslept by more than an HOUR!So I quickly, got dressed, grabbed a bag of banana and a cereal for breakfast and lunch, and ran out to the bus stop, where I brushed my hair and ate a banana as I waited for the bus.Where's the bus? Glance my watch: 07:15am. I should call them to say I might be late, but there's no payphone

Dinner clean up

2008-01-24T04:04:00.000Z

I just finished clean up for dinner at Seneca Falls.I'd been sceptical about the claim that dinner clean up is a four hour job (two people for two hours), and usually it wouldn't be--yesterday's I think would have been about one hour total. But today they made a mess. I've helped do dinner clean up for groups of 70+ people, and this meal for ~20 impressed me. There just kept being more stuff.Two

2008 ramblings

2007-12-14T03:43:00.000Z

Huckabee is getting popular. As governor, Huckabee increased spending over 60%. CATO (libertarian think tank) gives him an F. Huckabee wants to double PEFAR (AIDS funding), but in the past, he suggested isolating people with AIDS (though doesn't any more). Huckabee seems to be a Creationist. He says homosexuality is aberrant, unnatural, sinful, and poses a dangerous public health risk.But he's

Dreams

2007-11-29T22:13:00.000Z

One night after falling asleep, I dreamt about the Death Star from Star Wars. Looked just like it.What's amazing is that I'm not alone. Dozens, nay, thousands of people have had similar dreams. They lose consciousness and then have vivid perceptions of large, spherical space stations of similar size and design, and often it's called a 'Death Star' by people in the vision.This is an amazing

Office Depot posters

2007-11-25T03:44:00.000Z

Over by the office furniture in Office Depot, they have nice big pictures on the wall, seemingly advertising the chairs and desks. Nice, shiny expensive chairs and fancy wooden desk....on top of which rest 20-year-old computers. An old Apple, complete with the ugly mouse, an old IBM-Compat. with a green monochrome CRT displaying a text terminal...Maybe they're just really old pictures for

People scare me.

2007-11-20T00:56:00.000Z

Person how are the people in antartica not upside down?Person [States his name because multiple people use the account.]Luca Consider the definitionof 'down'.Luca We use a spherical coordinate system.Person but the people are on the bottom of the earth.Luca Now consider the definition of 'bottom'.Luca You've switched frames of reference.Luca Down is toward the centre of the Earth, not toward the

Poor bird

2007-11-10T20:36:00.000Z

The dogwood tree out my window is apparently home to a black bird with white-tipped wings.A somewhat territorial bird.It also seems to be a popular resting space for the passing flocks of migrating birds, much to his distress.

Serving size

2007-11-05T03:13:00.000Z

According to the wrapper of the fortune cookie I had at lunch today: Serving Size: 1 Package (43g/6 Cookies)Who eats six fortune cookies?Brian Regan does. (Autoplaying video)(Front: :-) You believe in the goodness of mankind. :-)Back: Daily Numbers 2 2 1Lotto Six #'s 43 24 31 20 27 38)

Password

2007-10-27T00:01:00.000Z

When you look up a word that 'may be inappropriate for children' ('cunt' and 'shit'. Not 'bitch'), Webster's Online Dictionary: Rosetta Edition requires that you enter a 'password':The answer to any of these questions is a valid password for this page: 1. Cher's former partner's last name (4 letters)2. The cube root of twenty seven (5 letters)3. The "incident" before the Vietnam War (6 letters)4.

Sauerkraut

2007-10-26T00:40:00.000Z

'What is sauerkraut, anyway? Is it like it's own vegetable?' -- Girl working at the Swiss Chalet. Where they have sauerkraut.Unfortunately I didn't hear Tom's reaction.My point--or not really, but I'll make one up just now--is that she could still be smarter and more general-knowledgeable than you or me. Everyone has missing bits of general knowledge, and sauerkraut is hardly the most significant

Bionic Woman

2007-10-21T00:51:00.000Z

I just watched a few bits of the new Bionic Woman.What an incredibly bad show.Acting: Really, really bad. And over-dramatic. But this is partly the fault of:Writing: Really, really bad. Very insipid and extremely over-dramatic. But this is partly the fault of:Diretion: Really, really bad. Or maybe this is just what happens when you hire a bunch of non-actors to perform scripts written by a bunch

Mouse

2007-10-17T18:08:00.001Z

I was just switching around the mice on ZombieComp when I noticed the very-little-used GE PS/2 mouse has a warning label on the bottom informing us that it contains lead, so wash your hands after using it.It doesn't work anyway. I attached the optical USB mouse I used to use on my laptop, and an old PS/2 that isn't working too well. The USB seems okay on the mousepad, but in my experience it

Memory solves nothing

2007-10-09T23:48:00.000Z

You know how you're arguing with someone and they'll start contradicting themselves or denying having said such and such? Often I'm able to give verbatim or near-verbatim quotes from them, since this is often only thirty seconds after they said it, but sometimes I can't and never will they admit to having said it.For a while I was thinking I should carry around an audio recorder for such

Lame CROP Walk Multipost

2007-10-01T15:38:00.002Z

My last attempt to solicit exorbitant quantities of money from my readers resulted in a grand total of 0DKK (which is still equal to 0USD, even with the improved exchange rate). Alas! Alack!Okay, you people refuse to give me money for posting on my blog. Makes sense I haven't been posting on my blog.So here's what I'ma do: I'm going to walk 5km (so far! I know! They make me sign a waiver and

Britannica

2007-09-24T03:42:00.000Z

This weekened I was mostly without an Internet connection, and the question of the details of the Dred Scott v. Sandford case came up.So I looked up Dred Scott in Encyclopædia Britannica, except it wasn't under 'Dred' or under 'Scott'.Wikipedia, however, has it. Lots on it. And if you misspell it as 'Dread Scott' or 'Dred Scot', you get instantly redirected, and it's much faster than Britannica,

On making films

2007-09-17T04:28:00.001Z

They're making a new Get Smart film. Yay!With Anne Hathaway as 99.Anne Hathaway.May St. Genesius himself return to smite those responsible for this.I hereby decree before turning something decent into a film, one must recruit Joss Whedon or Neil Gaiman to assist. Tim Burton or Peter Jackson may also be acceptable should the others be unavailable.

German Blogger

2007-09-15T03:13:00.001Z

For reasons I don't know, Blogger suddenly decided to put the occasional line in German:'Blog anzeigen (in einem neuen Fenster)''Tastaturkürzel: drücken Sie Strg zusammen mit: B = Bold, I = Italic, P = Publish, S = Save, D = Draft''Fügt eine Schaltfläche auf der Symbolleiste des Post-Editors hinzu, mit der englische Schrift in Hindischrift umgewandelt wird.Ihre Änderungen werden gespeichert, um

Lasagne

2007-09-15T03:11:00.000Z

I made lasagne for supper.Same recipe I always use, even though there are now four people instead of six.However, though I used the same amount of dough, I think I used more cheese than usual.We had no parmesan, so I used extra mozzarella. As in, more than half of a 2LB bag. The whole bag was supposed to be 32 servings, so I'm guessing I used about 20 servings.Roughly 1.8lb of tomato sauce. (~13

On buying plane tickets

2007-09-14T16:22:00.000Z

(2007-09-14 16:20:30) haiciM: Oh, the price of the ticket has gone down 3 DKK since I last checked. Cool.(2007-09-14 16:21:04) haiciM: Even so, it is so close that I worry about it going up. I think that I'll just buy now.(2007-09-14 16:21:13) lkbm: Saving you nearly $0.56. Whoohoo.Someone elsewhere commented that 3DKK is nothing, so I was going to start a 'give me nothing' campaign using

Durin, Gandalf, Thrain, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Nori, Fili, Kili, Gloin, Dori, Ori

2007-09-12T04:36:00.001Z

Fill in your own commentary

2007-09-05T23:54:00.000Z

I was going to write to my representative (NC district 1) to say 'Support H.R. 811!' but he's a co-sponsor, so instead I wrote saying 'Yay! Thanks!'But I mistyped my zipcode (resulting in one from NC district 3), and got this reply:Your zip code indicates that you are outside of the 4th District of Pennsylvania.Regrettably, I am unable to reply to any email from constituents outside of the 4th

A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox!

2007-09-03T16:09:00.001Z

I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to paradoxes. I don't consider the most ingenious one to be one. (Autoplaying video warning)Tem42 defines paradoxes roughly as 'when there are two reasonable ways of looking at something and they result in a contradiction'. I often find myself tempted to be exclusionary to the point of saying 'two [or more] sound arguments with contradictory conclusions' (in

Fire

2007-08-31T02:43:00.000Z

A guy on a website I frequent just stated: I will be away for some days...My country is burned to the ground... A bit dramatic, perhaps, but sadly not a bit overdramatic.

Naming cats

2007-08-29T15:43:00.000Z

The good thing about cats is that they come in various sizes of litters. If it was one cat each time, you'd have no basis for the naming system, but when it's a litter of six, well, there aren't many choices:Six simple machines (Good names, I must say.)Six regular convex polychora (This is what I used. They can be long, though.)The Big Six (I should re-read those books sometime.)You can't name a

Montessori School

2007-08-24T23:08:00.000Z

When I was three, perhaps, my brother went to Montessori school. Since my mother sometimes helped out there, so too did I at times.For those not in the know:Montessori school is a very 'laissez faire' type of school. They had various 'stations' the kids would visit of their own accord, visiting them all, but perhaps focusing on those they found most interesting. Something like that. I don't

Power

2007-08-22T17:45:00.000Z

Yesterday the power company had curtailable customers cut power usage by 2.5%, and expect that later this week they'll have to go to the next level, 5%.The step after that is 'rotating feeder and substation blackouts'. They don't think that'll happen.Anyway, I turned off my fan. It's possible the air conditioner is downstairs, so I may go sit in that room and read.(My laptop suddenly turned off

Truth

2007-08-21T01:50:00.000Z

'Every time you smoke a cigarette, there goes another breath of your life.' -- Stupid advert everyone in NC has seen a million times.Seems like every time you breathe, there goes another breath of your life.

Cheque

2007-08-18T21:38:00.000Z

I usually over-pay my credit card bill slightly. Having a slight credit doesn't hurt anything, right? Well, a few months ago two of them sent me checks. End of the fiscal year, I guess. The first one didn't say a thing about why they sent it. I didn't know what was going on until the second one came.Just now I got a third one. This may be the last; I only have three or four credit cards. Anyway,

IM Conversation

2007-08-17T03:24:00.001Z

Someone I didn't recognise from their YIM name IM'd me and said ''Ello.'So, of course I replied with 'Did you say "hello"?'And she knew the proper response! I was all, 'This isn't my sister, is it? No, she doesn't use YIM, and wouldn't have that username, and so on. There must be a third person in this world who has this level of coolness.' And there is.'No, I said "'ello", but that's close

Mod_Perl Mysteries

2007-08-15T23:01:00.000Z

I really don't think it's fair for me to be just using a simple script as I always do and it to suddenly not be able to call methods it's been using the whole time. I've changed nothing, but suddenly the each method is being called from an undefined iterator in mysqlPP.pm's fetch method.It's also lame that I can't use CGI in mod_perl. I don't know why, but in CGI, it's fine, but under mod_perl,

Selective Service

2007-08-13T18:23:00.000Z

People say between the ages of 18 and 25, but they don't mean 'between'. It's inclusive. Damn.But let's see them come and get me. You really want to take away my freedom and arm me at the same time? Bad move, that.

Gun rights and an improved military

2007-08-10T20:04:00.000Z

The French Resistance did a decent job in France, though they needed a lot of help.A few years ago, I wasn't so hopeful for us. Military has improved, I said. At this point, the argument that we need guns in case the government gets oppressive is bogus. They have tanks and missiles and intensive training.Then we went to Iraq, and it became apparent that the US military, for all it's

Gun rights

2007-08-08T02:09:00.000Z

I could easily do a dozen posts on gun rights. Maybe I will. But right now, I'm just focusing on one thing:Guns are considered the last resort against an oppressive government. Does anyone else find it troubling that the citizens with guns (and who support gun rights) tend to be the same ones who support the growing oppressiveness of our government?With the liberals refusing to arm themselves and

Petition

2007-08-06T16:01:00.000Z

Recently Greenville decided to rename Martin Luther King Jr. Street to 5th Street, since it actually is 5th Street for the part they didn't back in the day rename to Martin Luther King Jr. Street.I was asked to sign a petition telling them NO, don't rename it back to something simple and consistent. Said the petition, Greenville's five(?) WHITE board members made the decision for the

Law abiding citizen.

2007-08-03T01:03:00.000Z

I am governed by tens of thousands of pages of laws at three1 (four?2 five?3) levels of government. These laws have been interpreted and reinterpreted many times by tens of thousands of court cases. I am legally obligated to follow every one of these laws.Actually, I don't need to follow these law and their most recent court interpretations. I need to follow whatever future interpretation is made

'I can't cook!'

2007-08-01T18:57:00.000Z

If I was a contestant on Iron Chef, I'd be in trouble. Firstly because they all speak Japanese. Let's say this is actually Iron Chef America, just so we don't have to worry about that.More importantly, however, because they'd whip the veil off a vat of live tuna and expect me to prepare a five course meal using them as the central ingredient. In one hour. Without a cookbook.My strategy would be

Sorry, George Michael

2007-07-30T16:30:00.000Z

Suppose you're walking down the street in Dallas when you're approached by a guy who looks as if he hasn't shaved or showered in thirty years. 'Kennedy was killed by Alaskan coal miners!' he tells you.You, being an open-minded person with nothing better to do, ask him how he knows. He proceeds to show you charts and diagrams and reams of print-out supporting his claim. You study the data

Today's fortunes

2007-07-29T18:36:00.001Z

Two fortune cookies with lunch today::-) You have an unusually magnetic personality. :-)Magnets. Whoohoo!24 29 11 26 2 9Three primes and a square. Mediocre.Speak Chinesefour hundred si baiI don't know how to get the tonal marks or kanji.:-) Birds are entangled by your feet and men by their tongues. :-)What?28 18 43 44 30 51One prime and my favourite perfect. Meh.Speak Chinesevery well hen haoNot

'Format cascading ternary operators in columns'

2007-07-27T13:48:00.000Z

This rule from Perl Best Practices made me laugh and finally realise what twisted, sick-minded individuals Perl programmers really are.The correct rule is obviously 'Don't cascade ternary operators. Just don't. Use if-else.' But Perl programmers do it our way, and it's as beautiful as it is evil.

Factorial

2007-07-25T13:47:00.000Z

In the array and hash naming convention guideline in Perl Best Practices, they have this lovely example of when an array name should be singular (answer: when used as a random access table like a hash):sub factorial { my ($n) = @_; croak "Can't compute factorial($n)" if $n < 0 || $n > $MAX_FACT; return $factorial[$n];}Factorials not pre-calculated for the cache are simply declared

Signage

2007-07-23T02:16:00.000Z

'Best seafood in town' -- Sign in front of the only seafood restaurant in Chocowinity.

Deathly Hallows

2007-07-21T16:20:00.000Z

Luca: She's reading the copyright page first.Lilani, reading HP7: You always read the copyright page first.Luca: Of course.Lilani: I always do.

Worms, cannibalism, and mazes

2007-07-18T20:35:00.000Z

Before the cold fusion debacle, what did we use as the quintessential example of bad science?One noder claims it was Dr. James McConell's experiments at the University of Michigan. Specifically, Dr. James McConell would have planarian worms run a maze. Once they were trained he chopped them up and fed them to some other planarian worms. These cannibal worms were then able to run the maze better

Why I hate driving in Atlanta

2007-07-16T21:02:00.000Z

Roads change namesOkay, we have this in Greenville, NC too. Until a few weeks ago, 5th changed into Martin Luther King Jr., but for the most part, if you don't leave the main road, you won't find yourself on a completely different road.Roads reuse namesI'm on Clairemont. Why am I passing Clairemont? Holy Toledo!, there it goes by again!Apparently, some fool decided that Clairemont Rd. wasn't

Hawk

2007-07-09T12:44:00.000Z

I was going to post about the hawk, but it was a boring story. Basically: hawk want birds in cage. People not want hawk to get birds. I stare at hawk and move the cage he's sitting atop. Hawk not kill me.Happy ending!

Using math

2007-07-07T11:29:00.000Z

Math professors are always telling their students that math is useful outside of the classroom and is needed in many aspects of normal life.Then the students go home and see that their stupid parents don't know algebra or trigonometry or much of anything beyond basic arithmetic, yet manage to get through life all right.So the student correctly assumes they don't need math. They also assume math

The Beast is Back

2007-07-06T16:49:00.000Z

You know how Cingular is the new at&t?SBC bought the name AT&T because their own reputation was too bad. They needed a name change.Let me say that again: SBC's reputation--the connotations of that name--was worse than that of AT&T.All you young'uns and foreigners may not understand this, but if you say this to an American in his forties or older, their head will explode.If you pay attention to

Don't laugh.

2007-07-04T20:09:00.000Z

And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. -- George Bush, Sept. 30, 2003.Very well taken care of.Don't laugh. It's not funny.