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March 31, 2005

Just a heads-up

Don't believe everything you read today. You'll be surfing all wide-eyed only to be suckered by some huckster claiming "the pope is dead!" or something. Err, maybe that's a bad example.

The best April Fool's in my memory has to be Art Bell's from 1998 or so. His home page was briefly replaced by a notification from the FBI saying it had been shut down for various dark reasons. The conspirophiles came out of the woodwork over that one.

What, you've never heard of Art Bell?

Posted by eric at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

desktocious

To celebrate the terrible name, I've come up with an equally terrible icon. I can only hope the orange starts to make up for it.

If you want to get this program, for which I bear no responsibility, you can get the binary with installer or the project source files. It does install a windows explorer shell extension, so you'll either have to restart your computer or press CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE and kill/restart the running explorer process.

If you're the paranoid type, I've included the source which you can build yourself (provided you have VS.NET 2003).

For some instructions, see the previous post.

• Download Windows XP/2000 installer. [341kb]
• Download Source Project.

Posted by eric at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)

Tagging the Desktop, Part 2

Whoops.. See the next post to get the software that goes with this one.

Part 2: Adventures in Tagging and Interface design

The AppRocket Model

I found a "desktop accelerator" type utility through del.icio.us called "AppRocket". It's just a little bar that docks itself to the top of your screen. You enter a few characters and it drops down list of terms that match. The set it searches is configurable, but includes all your files, your start menu items and bookmarks. It also has special items like "Google" which let you search from that little bar. It also has a memory of terms you've entered and scrolled down the list to reach; it brings these to the top during subsequent searches.

Very handy little tool; reliable, cute-but-functional interface. I might buy it, but I can't discover why I would want to. Nothing appears to be disabled. There's no list of "purchase now and receive..." features. It appears to be more along the lines of guiltware -- but $20 is a little much for that. (Their website announces that they've cut the price in half, to boot.)

Also, the search feature is not without its flaws. Suppose I want to access the C:\Temp folder on my hard drive. I type in "C:\Temp" but it looks like backslashes aren't allowed. Okay, so "Temp". Now I have a list that that stretches about 10 times the length of the small droplist. All these temp folders are under Visual Studio projects' "obj" folders. I scan down the list, but they all say the same thing: temp * My Documents. I can't find my temp folder, and I give up. This might not be such a problem except that AppRocket claims to be a "very handy file browser".

So what's the moral of the story? The programs that help users find their stuff should be as unobtrusive as possible. The user doesn't want to think about your program when they've got their stuff on their mind.

Kicking the Tires

First thing's first: I had to choose a name other than "Loquacious" since that had already been appropriated by a del.icio.us account-commenting bookmarklet: http://rich.headsnet.com/loquacious/index.php. Instead, I'm going to use the development name "Desktocious". Original, huh?

There's a list of specifications in Part 1 that I'm satisified have been fulfilled, see those if you need to get an understanding of what Desktocious does. So I'll start by describing how the program works. Skip to the last section if you're more interested in a little analysis of how well the experiment has turned out.

Visual tour

AppRocket has the advantage of requiring absolutely no user input before using. You start it up and start typing in search terms. "Goo" brings up Google. For Desktocious, though, the user will have to plug in their own.

The most intuitive way to do this is to associate the tagging mechanism with the Folders themselves, so a context menu extension is the logical choice.

This dialog lets you associate tags and descriptions with Folders. Note that you can select many folders to tag at once, just ctrl + click in Explorer. If you try to tag a folder that's already been tagged, the new tags will simply be merged into the old list.

This is the primary interface of Desktocious, believe it or not. You can either access it by clicking on the tray icon or by pressing CTRL+F12. Type a tag and it will display a list of associated Folders. Use the up and down arrow keys and Enter to launch a selected folder (CTRL+Enter opens all). Desktocious will attempt to auto-complete the tag you are currently typing.

The 'Down' arrow (or a click anywhere else on the desktop) minimizes the popup box. The 'X' button exits. But what's really interesting is the 'Up' arrow, which brings up the Tag Viewer:

The Tag Viewer form lets you query tags in much the same way as the popup. The big difference is that here, the tags themselves are the primary focus. You can view tag query results by clicking on the tag list (CTRL-clicking lets you add multiple tags) or typing in a query. Instead of autocomplete, a list of possible queries and the number of results of each is displayed. You can refine results by referring to the "Related Tags" list.

Edit entries by double-clicking on the them in the results list. Delete by clicking on an entry and hitting the Delete key.

So Far, So Good

When it comes to dogfooding myself, I'm terrible. I hardly ever use a program I've written on a regular basis. (Feel free to speculate on why this is...)

So, regular use is a pretty high bar for my own software. If I can achieve that, my confidence in the usability of the program will grow. So far, things are looking good. An example:

While doing some debugging, I needed to combine things from 3 different folders. I knew that a window for one was already open and hiding on the taskbar somewhere. The other two were buried deep on a different machine. I'd assigned both of them the same tag earlier, so it was trivial to hit CTRL+F12, type the first character (although more may be required when my tag list gets denser), and hit CTRL+Enter to launch browsers for both directories. The gratifying thing is that I pulled up those two folders in much less time than it took to locate the first, already open folder.

I've since removed all my desktop folder shortcuts. They were a real pain to find and open to begin with. I also found myself tagging folders of utilites I frequently use. Which leads me to the next section...

What Next?

As a commenter pointed out in Part 1: Why not tag files? Well, my initial reasoning was that folders are one higher up in the hierarchy and the files they contained were easily within reach provided I could browse to a particular folder quickly. Well, now that some working code has been layed down I think it's perfectly reasonable to consider the taggability of files. But I'm going to be greedy: I want to tag other things. It's time to think generic.

For tags to be a ubiquitous solution, the interface must be able to associate them with almost any kind of data. Right now, Desktocious is limited to tagging folders. But the principle can be applied to almost anything; from whole networks to computers, disks, files, text, bookmarks, e-mail addresses, shortcuts, and, if you really wanted to tag them, bytes. (What an expensive and unstructured addressing mode that would be!)

The complexity in services like del.icio.us and Flickr doesn't come from this scheme of grouping large sets according to a few key words, it comes from the social and scaling problems. (Not that I would argue del.icio.us is especially complicated.) Just think about how much crunching power, not to mention bandwidth, is required on a daily basis over at Flickr. If we take tagging and distill the social complications out, the result is really quite trivial. Windows 2000/XP, or more specifically, the file system they are built on, already allows for keywords to be associated with files. For various reasons, namely complexity and file system independence, I've chosen not to use them.

Picasa 2, from Google, already lets me tag or label my pictures simply by right-clicking on them wherever they are in the viewer and choosing a label from a popout list. They are instantly added to and displayed in the label's viewing area, with an unobtrusive visual marker indicating that we're looking at a labeled image and the original is somewhere else. Another quick click brings to do the folder they're stored in in the viewer, and another launches explorer with the file already highlighted. Simple. On the other hand, there's no way to query these labels; you simply view them one at a time in the browser.

So here's a little outline for for "Desktocious Ultra". Feel free to add your own suggestions to the list:

Features

• Generic 'Taggable' base type for all items that a user wants to tag.
• Extensible framework that allows new types to be added to the tagging engine
• Boolean query operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • programs AND NOT bookmarks
  • downloads AND (text OR document)
  • (.NET OR C# OR VB) AND NOT ASP

Goodies

• Common tag "scaled" map a la http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
• Shell extension to indicate which files/directories are tagged

Technorati Tags: tagging, desktop, software

Posted by eric at 10:08 PM | Comments (1)

Odds or Ends

I, for one, welcome our bipedal cephalopod overlords.

Here's what one female Harvard professor thinks about the recent gender flap.

Plus a story on virus writers. Ah, yes, it's good to be back.

Posted by eric at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2005

High Water Mark

Test is done, what a relief. All that's left is the paperwork. I'm not much for boasting, but wow, it feels good to work for something and then get it. Especially when that something has been 6 years in the making.

Posted by eric at 11:59 PM | Comments (5)

March 29, 2005

Jacket b' gone

70 degrees out, another night spent hitting the books. Tomorrow is the big day, things will be kind of quiet 'til later. "Tagging the Desktop: Part 2" is well on the way, I promise.

Posted by eric at 11:08 PM | Comments (2)

March 28, 2005

Did you know?

The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a common verb or as a noun. The Photoshop trademark should always be capitalized and should never be used in possessive form, or as a slang term.

Trademarks are not verbs.

CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.

Trademarks are not nouns.

CORRECT: The image pokes fun at the Senator.
INCORRECT: The photoshop pokes fun at the Senator.

Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form.

CORRECT: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Photoshopped.
INCORRECT: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped.

Thanks, Adobe!

Posted by eric at 11:21 PM | Comments (1)

Happy TMI Day!

China Syndrome was a really terrible movie.

Now that that's out of the way, what would happen if a nuclear reactor in this country suffered a core meltdown? Well, you can read about it here.

After the accident, investigators sent a camera down into the reactor vessel and discovered that almost half of the core had turned into molten slag at the bottom of the vessel. Hooray for large negative void coefficients.

Posted by eric at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

I should really start a blog about celebrities

According to the referrer logs, most of the site traffic has switched over from being purely of the "is jon heder dead" variety to the "nicole dehuff dead" variety.

Who is Nicole DeHuff, you ask? Well, she's the girl who got hit in the face with the volleyball in "Meet the Parents". And I posted about her.

She, unlike our tater-tot-toting Mormon, is really dead. Anyone who is searching for info on her knows this, making the searches a little more macabre.

Welcome to Monday.

Posted by eric at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2005

"1, 2, 4, That's everybody!"

Baggage handler takes unexpected voyage

MILWAUKEE - An airport worker loading baggage in Milwaukee got locked inside the cargo hold of an airplane that flew to Philadelphia.

The worker was “a little stressed” but uninjured after the unscheduled flight, a spokeswoman for Midwest Airlines said Friday.

He's lucky it wasn't a transpacific flight.

Posted by eric at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)

Been a little dry around here lately. I blame March Madness (in HD!) and the fact my last final, "for the degree", is Wed.

Posted by eric at 08:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2005

50 Cent Speaks

On his new bulletproof cars:

"I have two (bulletproof vehicles), one in New York, one in LA, and it was about 100 grand each,

"I'm actually disappointed though: Nobody's shot me. I spent a lot of money on that s**t!"

If he's really intent on trying them out, he should take them through a spin through Sadr City.

Posted by eric at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Memos and Protests

There was an ABC news story that featured a memo from "Senate Republicans" about the Terri Schiavo congressional bill, pointing out how it was a "winning issue" for the party. I distinctly remember seeing that memo on the screen and thinking it somewhat silly and distasteful if it was real.

Well, as it turns out...

The "unsigned" memo isn't composed of real "talking points," nor is it in standard format for memo operating procedure. No reporter has been able to offer evidence of its authenticity. As further proof to suggest the memo may be fake, the title says that it's tied to S.529, a bill concerning a US anti-doping agency, not Terri. There may be an explanation for all of this, but as [Power Line] says, "the burden now is clearly on ABC and the Washington Post to explain why they are not the victims of a hoax."

...

Yesterday's NY Times offers clues to possible origins: "As tensions festered among Republicans, Democratic aides passed out an unsigned one-page memorandum that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans".

I'm a little disappointed there will be no use for typographic analysis this time around, those posts were most amusing.

Plus, an amusing, unsourced story about paid protestors:

“I was walking through the Dallas airport with some colleagues and one of them recognized two of the same protestors we had seen outside the event in Albuquerque. We had some extra time, so we decided to talk to them. They were very polite and explained to us they had just come from protesting an event nearby. One of them very quickly identified themselves as professional protestors.”

“Not that they just liked to protest, but that they actually got paid by liberal interest groups to travel the country protesting."

Posted by eric at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

Tagging shorts

Some more on tags, blogged from a roundtable discussion. Would be interesting to see if any more complete transcripts or recordings are available. Interesting chunks about the relationship between searching and tagging as well as the role of autocomplete.

Oh, and totally offtopic: These are hilarious.

Posted by eric at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

More trees

Coding Horror has some more thoughts on trees, similar to what I was rambling about last night.

It's true that treeviews are appropriate for a few specialized situations. A HR diagram of managers and employees, for example. In my experience, however, trees get horribly abused. The canonical example of unnecessary tree use is in email clients.

Mine is 3 levels deep and twice the height of the treeview pane when fully expanded. I've personally used 3 of the entries in it out of 3 or 4 dozen.

Posted by eric at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2005

Tagging the Desktop

What follows is a thought experiment I've been toying with for the last few days, a real work-in-progress. It may not be interesting until there is real software to play with, but in the meantime I'm posting it as a project log.

Part 1: Tags and Trees

Tags and Searches

"Tags", to put it mildly, are the new hotness on the web. The most popular social web services such use "tags" (or "labels" or "keywords") as a quick way for user categorization of information, and in most cases they work quite nicely. Plug in a tag like "Seattle" into del.icio.us or flickr and you will get a mish-mash of links and pictures related to the city with the world's first Starbucks. More sophisticated systems will let you include multiple tags to find content and suggest related tags that can be incorporated in a search. Tags are most useful when you know what you want and simply need to locate something quickly from a lengthy list. After all -- search engines specialize in automatically creating tags or keywords from existing content.

Google recently released a Desktop Search tool to let users the contents of their hard drives in the same way they would search a web page. Clearly this is a useful tool, but the fact it exists at all is indicative of a larger problem with how users interact with modern PCs. It's possible to store so much data now that we could never remember the exact location of every file, directory, or program that we need.

The earliest computer file systems used flat spaces or single directories to store files. Tape was one of the reasons for this, but there were also many fewer users and many fewer files to work with. Multimedia as we know it today was non-existant. No MP3 collections or browser caches. Crude hierarchies could be achieved by file naming if necessary.

Hierarchical file systems developed as a way to seperate and protect the data of different users on multiuser systems. At first these were only single level deep, but they soon grew to the multi-level directory structures we know and use today. (And have they grown!) My work and home computers average 20 folders in their root directories, plus another 10 folders that reside on the desktop that are automatically expanded by Windows Explorer. Not to mention the "My Documents" folders which themselves have about a dozen sub-directories, many created by programs looking for a place to stash stuff. A sample of one is usually not a good idea, but I have a feeling I'm not alone in this sort of organizational spillage.

The machine I'm using at the moment has just shy of 150,000 files and 15,000 folders, and the funny thing is that it's only one third filled. Even if I created only 1/50th of these files, I still have a major organizational problem on my hands. These are files of every stripe, from assembly code to video clips. Many are in directories that I cannot easily relocate, such as my 'Inetpub' server root directory. Many are in places that I would not want to relocate, like library documentation. Files I need are stuck in directories that are many times 4 levels or more deep. Even the tool I use to defragment my drive is placed in a menu that is 5 levels deep. (More if I haven't used it recently.)

Back to the Google Desktop Search. It's one solution to my problem, and much of the time it works quite admirably -- by stripping out bits and pieces of data about my files in addition to the contents of the files themselves, it gives me a way to key in on files that may be what I'm looking for. If I can guess enough of the phrases in an old Word document to narrow my search, I can usually find it. It's handy in a pinch (not to mention the fact that the local caching has saved my tail on a couple of occasions), but in my mind it is still just a stopgap. There will come a point where I will fill GDS's indexes with enough clutter that its utility will die off; lack of 'PageRank' for local files will only hasten this.

User-Created Hierarchies vs Tagged Sets and the Path of Least Resistance

If I were dilligent, I would have a nice system for sorting and filing away all the bits and pieces that end up on my machine. As it stands, I have a Project directory for all the things I'm working on, a Utilities directory for the small programs I use and a Program Files directory for the larger ones. There's Downloads for all the joke mp3 and blooper avi files I accumulate. Firefox has not been helpful to me in this regard. It shunts everything I save to the Desktop, which has been to form its own primitive organization system: Files on the right, shortcuts and folders on the left. I lack the discipline to even turn this Firefox "feature" off and have it prompt me for locations each time I download.

Nonetheless, my primitive hierarchy used to hold up pretty well, that is, until my Project list stretched off the bottom of the screen and began digging a hole to China. I thought about creating additional directory groupings like Web or Photo but that would mean additional drill-down clicks for every single project file I wanted to get to. So now, there's an Old directory for Least Recently Used projects. This scheme appears to be doing okay, but has been complicated by the fact many programs I used automatically place project files in the My Documents folder, which now has its own Old sub grouping. Every time I want to locate older, but perhaps still useful code, I now have to decide whether or not it wound up in my original Project directory or the My Documents folder. Then I have to scan the list to see if the project has wound up in the Old group. I could move all my Projects stuff into My Documents, but that might break any hard-coded paths in a given project. (Same problem applies when moving to the Old group, so there's resistance there too.)

So, I want to try something: apply tags to my problem. Let's say I was able to tag all of my old projects as such. For that matter, I could tag all my projects as projects, regardless of which location the folders end up. Last, let's say I consider each project directory name as a tag. This scheme essentially merges two parts of the hierarchy, Projects and My Documents, and yields immediate benefits: If I search for the tag 'project', I will receive a list of all the projects. 'project old' will give me a list of old projects. Better yet, all I have to do is type in the project name if I can remember it.

Obviously this example is not quite fair to hierarchies; if all my projects were in one directory I would simply have to scan the list of names. The path Project\Old is logically equivalent to the result of the search `Project Old'. (To be more specific, the union of the sets of directories tagged Project and Old.) On the other hand, there is that long project list again: the kind of list that tags have done a good job of making managable.

Let me try another example: Suppose all my projects are in one long directory, two pages screen length. Each project has a set of tags associated with it. SoldierModel, part of a mod I'm working on for a World War 2 action game, has the tags 'model ww2 mod 3d lua script'. BlogBlather has the tags 'blog php script' and so on. I have long forgotten about the specifics of each project and what their directories contain, but I remember that I've written an algorithm at some point in the distant past that is related to something new.

I could open up the projects list and start scrolling, alternately glancing back and forth from the directory list to the directory contents pane. I see 10 projects that look promising, and on average it'll take me 5 clicks to get the right project, from which I can attempt to locate the file I'm looking for.

Alternately, I can type in the tag 'script'. It pulls the all the results tagged 'script' from the list. It narrows my search to the same 10 I found promising just by scanning the directory list, but it does so immediately and without the volatility of my memory. Let's say as an added feature it lists 'lua' as a related tag, and I remember that the algorithm was in that particular language. 'script lua' leads me to the correct project (or very close if I had other old mods) right off the bat.

Towards a Working Example

So I've presented a couple of stilted examples so far; skepticism over the benefits of tagging directories is definitely warranted because it comes with a good number of drawbacks. For starters, you have to enter the tags, which could take some time or repeat changes if the contents change. The quality of the searches depend on the quality and comprehensiveness of the tagging. Next, tags can be ambiguous: is 'script' referring to interpreted source code or the next big Hollywood blockbuster? What about plural forms or abbreviations? Consistency? The tag search interface must be easy to learn and integrate well with the directory viewer you already use. The advantages of using tags must be obvious, even when compared to a well-formed directory structure.

I'm going to try to convince myself this is worth doing. So, as my own guinea pig, I'm going to demand these specifications:

• Each directory (folder) in the tree can have a set of tags and a textual description associated with it.
• Ability to tag multiple folders at once.
• Fast tag searches using logical AND operator
• Tag search autocompletes tag currently being typed (with previous tags) to improve consistency of use.
• Results list with folder path, tags, and description visible for each result
• 'Related tags' list for currently selected result
• Easy to use search dialog
• Click to launch folder

I'm also going to have to force myself to tag most or all of the folders I use regularly and make it harder, at least temporarily, to do things the old way. I think I'll name it Loquacious (cleverest[?] fit of: 'local' tags + deli.cio.us).

More when I get some free time...

Hybrid-Search and Storage of Semi-structured Information
http://haystack.lcs.mit.edu/papers/Adar.thesis/main.html

GNOME Storage
http://www.gnome.org/~seth/storage/associative-interfaces.pdf

WinFS Data Model
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Longhorn/WinFS/WinFSDataModel.asp

Metadata for the Masses
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000361.php

Tagging and Expression Languages
http://ianso.blogspot.com/2005/01/tagging-and-expression-languages.html

Tags != folksonomies && Tags != Flat name spaces
http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/24/tags_folksonomies_tags_flat_name_spaces.php

Technorati Tags: tags, desktop, software, project

Posted by eric at 11:43 PM | Comments (5)

If you're manic and you know it, clap your hands...

Ever have those days when the highs and lows come in equal fervor? You sail gratifying through parts and bang your head against the wall for the rest? Bang out amazingly productive lines and then stare at the monitor, not seeing anything at all. It's possible what's left of the illness is making me moody. Then again, it could be the intangibles.

It almost hit 50 today, quite nice to go around without a jacket. Being back on campus, well, it was familiar but without nostalgia. The finals process is rolling, hopefully it will be all done within the week.

I love this article. Note the 'as-if' quotes in all the right places (especially given the obligatory photograph). AND it has a little blurb at the end about Larry Summers.

Posted by eric at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2005

This picture is clearly wishful thinking in Minnesota in March, but I'm trying to get myself back into the picture taking mood.

Green trees, running water... Sigh.

In the meantime, I'll make sure my batteries are charged.

Posted by eric at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

And the Darwin Award goes to...

I've got family from these parts, so this should come as no surprise:

LAKE CITY - A 19-year-old Lake City man who died early Saturday inflicted two stab wounds to his own chest, police say.

...

Police believe Seward's actions were an attempt to get a neighbor in trouble.

Seward and the neighbor had an argument over the whereabouts of a bottle of alcohol during which Seward confronted the man with a knife, Bosscher said. Both men returned to their separate apartments.

Seward then called 911 at 1:22 a.m. from his apartment and said the neighbor had stabbed him. During the call, the dispatcher said Seward was relatively calm but as the conversation continues, he began screaming and asking for immediate help. Seward's girlfriend, Jennifer Bittell, who lives at the residence, could be heard screaming in the background and asking Seward why he had done this.

Posted by eric at 11:14 PM | Comments (1)

In a Funk

I woke up this morning to the surprise realization that a construction team came into my bedroom and installed fiberglass insulation in my sinus cavities. Ain't nothing getting through. It's hard to get any work done when your gray matter has been replaced by straw stuffing.

Funk numero dos: How much body odor do you have to endure to be polite? The janitor that cleans the office is, uh, 'developmentally disabled'. Normally, there would no problem -- good for him, he found a job.

Except for a few things.

His "bouquet" combines the best of that unwashed hermit smell while still leaving enough odiforous liberty for some empty dumpster aroma. Once, as an added bonus, he brought in some gas to share with us. Am I being insensitive?

Too bad, there's more: He makes fart noises while cleaning, which is unfortunate because cleaning happens to be his job. Last night, he stood over me, shuffling papers around on my desk in order to dust the computer the papers were ON TOP OF.

The obvious solution is to not be in the office while it's being cleaned, which is what I assume happens at real companies. The problem is that he makes janitorial performances at random on Monday or Friday. Sometimes both. I can't just get up and leave as soon as I hear fart noises approaching my desk, because it's obvious to everyone in the office that's exactly what I'm doing. We received a lecture from the office manager about how we have to respect him. I can continue to breath through my mouth during close encounters, but that sort of scheme makes algorithim development a little difficult.

This is so stupid. NO WORK can get done when the guy is here. Everyone knows this, but oddly no one seems to care. So this brings me back to my original question. If the answer is anything less than "bring in the firehose", I think I have something to gripe about.

Posted by eric at 09:26 AM | Comments (2)

The Onion, satire?

Someone is familiar with Mankato. Or, at least, Google.

Draper has a family and works full time as an administrative file clerk at Minnesota State University. His all-consuming passion, however, is the continued non-existence of a city pool.

Posted by eric at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2005

For Physics Geeks

From New Scientist: 13 things that do not make sense (via "The Daily ACK").

My favorite is "The Kuiper cliff", mostly because the name is delightfully aliterative and science-fictiony sounding. So kind of NS to post their cover story online.

Posted by eric at 02:54 PM | Comments (3)

Welcome to Monday. My brief illness has left me cranky but mostly functional -- I hope you can say something similar (or better).

I've heard the phrase "feeding tube" more times in the last three days than the whole of my life before. This is hereby my official "Do Not Resuscitate" notice. But if there is an option to turn me into an armed, mobile cyborg, I'll take it.

Posted by eric at 09:52 AM | Comments (1)

March 20, 2005

"Sunday CBS Movie". Sound dignified? Think again.

Spring Break Shark Attack was amazing. Just not in a good way.

The pivotal scene in the movie: an army of shark fins appear on the horizon, swimming directly towards a beach filled of spring breakers having an obnoxiously good time.

How do our heroes react to this ghastly sight? Run away, of course. There's something about a brave mission to spread "chum" and attract the sharks' attention -- but while preperations are being made, the sharks are having a fiesta on college meat. Our heroes 'forgot' to warn anybody about the impending slaughter.

By the time lead motley crew draw the sharks away, the damage has been done. Hundreds of casualties litter the beach (okay, dozens -- with many shown twice). I get the feeling the writers just hated spring breakers; this was particularly evident in the scene with the partier lounging in a floating chair, beer in hand. He gets tossed around briefly, goes under, and we are greeted with a spray of bloody water nearly ten feet tall.

Awesome. Small-screen fantasy vengeance for anyone who's ever been to an obnoxious party and wondered how on earth people could be enjoying themselves through such nonsense. Of course, the same could be said for me sitting at home and enjoying Shark Attack.

Now CBS needs to make a movie where party-pooper-couch-potatos are violently ripped to shreds by maurading bands of mutant possums. I can see the animatronic puppets now; teeth dripping with bloody strands of sinew. If only they could get Liv Tyler to star as the reserved student who comes to a small midwestern town for summer vacation. She finds herself caught up in a plot thick with escaped lab experiments, clueless binge drinkers, and a bookworm geek type with a device whose sole reason for existance can only be deus-ex plot resolution. (The geek would, of course, be my role.)

Independence Day Possum Massacre, coming this July.

Now, if you'll excuse me I think I hear something in the living ro-----.

Posted by eric at 10:48 PM | Comments (3)

Wicked Sick

Last night I had some friends over and was showing them my last few recorded Age of Myth games. I started a real one to show them some things I'd missed, then I started critiquing my performance: "Well, I shouldn't have left those villagers idle so early in the game."

They kindly pointed out to me I was actually playing this round. That's when I knew I was sick. Haven't had a good round of tonsilitis lately.

Just in time for the first day of spring.

Posted by eric at 11:38 AM | Comments (1)

March 18, 2005

NWS Sez...

000
WWUS43 KMPX 181001
WSWMPX

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN

330 AM CST FRI MAR 18 2005

...CRIPPLING SNOW ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL 

MINNESOTA INTO PORTIONS OF WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN...

Woot. 6 inches on the ground and another 12 on the way. I probably should have brought my gloves.

That said, I'm not very upset about the late-season white. It makes everything seem so tranquil, kind of wraps you up in a big, cold blanket.

Posted by eric at 09:13 AM | Comments (3)

March 17, 2005

Bummer, Dude

So very tired all of the sudden, I can hardly bring myself to clean up the mess the painting guys left. Drywall dust covering everything. Little chunks of plaster covering the floor. I split work a little early and hung out with the conceptual engineer. I don't think the screening of "Million Dolar Baby" we went to helped my mood.

Time for some sleep. Maybe some tea first. (Gah, fingers dusty just from typing this. But let's face it -- it can always get worse.)

Posted by eric at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)

Warnings for the Temporarily Irish

It's St. Patrick's Day. Whatever you do, stay away from the "Extra Stout" Guinness. The stuff will give you nightmares, not to mention the flashbacks. (And I only had one sip.)

We watched the Pattie's Day classic Leprechaun 2: Back in Tha Hood last night. The woman from the "Pine Sol" commericals made a cameo and we all learned a valuable lesson: No one uses the "N" word anymore, it's properly substituted by "Ninja".

Do not, I repeat, do NOT melt down a Leprechaun's gold and make tooth caps out of it. He will want his gold back and odds are he isn't bringing the nitrous oxide.

Keep it real, my Ninjas.

Posted by eric at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

File Under: "Why Didn't I Think of This?"

I stumbled on this really great idea last night: Live Previewing. Take the text you're typing into a textbox or textarea and insert it into a <div> tag somewhere on the page. Update on "onkeyup" events.

You can try it in the comments section right now -- just check "Live Preview" and type some text in the comment field. Add a few HTML tags -- links, images, whatever. It's all instantly previewed. The effect is really only about 5 lines of javascript, with an extra few lines of xhtml.

As a note, this behaves better in Firefox than IE, which spasms around on incomplete tags until they're fully typed in.

What I'd like to do with this is create a Markdown style parser so users don't have to know HTML. Maybe combine it with a certain library to let users write blog entries in real time directly onto their front pages. Sound good?

Posted by eric at 10:36 AM | Comments (1)

March 15, 2005

Caffe Latte Enabler

So, the girl working at the coffee shop asks me: "Do you have a card?"

Apparently if I buy ten things I get a free drink. "I can give you a few punches."

She gave me 6 out of 10.

"Wow, uh, thanks." What am I supposed to say to that? Awesome.

Posted by eric at 09:10 PM | Comments (10)

Do libertarians have more fun?

This Wall Street Journal op-ed says yes.

Comedian Jeff Jena defines a Libertarian as a Democrat who wants to own a gun, or a Republican who wants to smoke pot. A TV newsmagazine producer named Kristina explains a Libertarian as a Republican with bad manners. And for New York writer Bill Huhn "a Libertarian is a libertine-arian."
...
Yale Law student Angus Dwyer at a recent gathering of New York conservatives: "a cheapskate who can't keep his pants zipped."

I guess I need to get with the program.

Unholy-bizarre: David Hasselhoff has lost his mind. Here he covers "Hooked on a Feeling" while possessing the power of flight, the daring of Evil Knievel, and positively ursidaen dietary habits (that is, he enjoys a fish).

Last, hot on the heels of "Pi Day" (3/14, or 3.14 if you prefer), is "International Eat An Animal For PETA Day". At the very least I have some cocktail shrimp that need to be finished off.

UPDATE:
I posted this once before over at "teh blog", but it bares repeating: The Hasselhoffian Recursion.

Posted by eric at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

What happens when you don't read fine print

Whoops! That said, I had fun anyways.

I also got word this morning of another contest, from my favorite blogger of them all. Yes, the hyperactive government-money question-mark guy.

He also has a recurring feature: "mini-blogging".

That suit camoflages him pretty well against the backdrop of suburban New York. I just hope he doesn't go guerilla to bring his message of free money to the people. (Thanks, Rick)

Posted by eric at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2005

You Can't Write This Stuff

It must be true.

Annan calls for treaty outlawing terrorism

MADRID, Spain - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for a world treaty on terrorism that would outlaw attacks targeting civilians...

Finally, a bold moral statement from the UN:

"The right to resist occupation ... cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians," Annan told the conference on democracy, terrorism and security. The United Nations, he said, must proclaim "loud and clear that terrorism can never be accepted or justified in any cause whatsoever."

A few questions:

Why does this declaration need to be made? Was it just something Annan had been mulling and finally realized needed to be acted upon? It's not like terrorism is a particularly new phenomenon.

Does he think the terrorists will care?

Why is this declaration being made on the anniversary of the Madrid bombings, three and a half years after September 11th? Was that not quite sufficient to kick off these precedings?

Posted by eric at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

Heh

What kind of midwestern name is Megan Cubbingford anyways? (It's a joke.)

Also: I realize the Japanese are... enthusiastic about odd, colorful things, but this is impressive.

Posted by eric at 03:35 PM | Comments (2)

Nazi Nonsense

From the Star Tribune (via Gigglepundit):

Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device in March 1945, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion in southeastern Germany, a German researcher claims in a new book published Monday.

That the Nazis conducted nuclear experiments has been known for decades, but "Hitler's Bomb", by Berlin academic Rainer Karlsch, suggests they may have been closer to building an atomic weapon for military use than previously believed.

This work was clearly not reviewed by someone knowledgable about these weapons before publication, especially given some of the details provided in the rest of the article.

The German device probably was a 2-ton cylinder containing enriched uranium, he said. The amount of uranium was so small that the conventional explosives used to trigger the device did not set off a vastly more destructive nuclear chain reaction, he said.

That would mesh with a graphic account Karlsch said he found in Soviet military archives, apparently based on information from a German informant, that the blast felled trees within a radius of about 1,640 feet to 1,968 feet.

Bzzzt. No chain reaction means you have only succeded in setting off a dirty bomb. Those conventional explosives must have been come from another dimension if two tons of them fell all trees within a 500 to 700 yard radius. More likely it would require several hundred to a few thousand tons of TNT to accomplish that feat. Trees have a habit of absorbing a lot of blast power, too.

No one noticed a blast zone nearly a mile across? Not to mention the charring and fires that would extend well beyond that radius? Depending on the makeup of the forest, clear signs would still be visible today.

What about the highly radioactive debris that would still be obvious 50 years later? (No mention of a clean up -- and that HEU won't just go away.)

On the other hand, the author's personal Manhattan Project for More Publicity has been an unmitigated success.

Posted by eric at 02:26 PM | Comments (1)

National Public What? Sounds like Commies to me.

Public radio has had a few delightful stories CS-related over the last couple days, and they're all online. Made me briefly feel bad for not forking over any bucks, but frankly MPR is an unstoppable behemoth in the pubic radio world. Maybe I'll buy a CD or something and make my gratitude a little more precision-guided.

In the CS world you don't find anyone larger than Donald Knuth. They interviewed him this morning on morning edition, and he didn't disappoint: his kitchen was designed with the help of graph theory (everything led back to the wastebasket). Slashdot posted the article and one of the commentors, noting that Knuth only responds to e-mail via secretary printout and snail mail, wondered openly how Knuth found his street address -- he hadn't included it.

This American Life had a story about a Pakistani student who faced the decision of whether to move back home after finishing his degree. Naturally, his family wanted him to stay back in Karachi. His life would certainly be much easier there, but the various things that the US can offer make his choice much more complicated (and I won't spoil it here). He recorded the process.

As an added bonus, we hear about the Apple Computer employees who are layed off but so dedicated to the piece of software they were working on that they sneak back into the building for 6 more months to finish the job. Unpaid. This story has been floating around online for awhile, but it was fun to hear the interviews. Episode is: "Should I Stay...".

Last was from the program "Speaking of Faith", and I'm not sure if it's broadcast nationally. The program was a discussion with a British quantum physicist and theologan. (The page even has a brief physics lesson!)

His ideas about justice and morality in the natural world were very engaging, and his opinion on the contribution of creationists, well, you just have to listen!

Posted by eric at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

Heartland Battles, Take 2

Saturday night there was an intense Age of Mythlogy battle in Mankato, 3v3. I can see future event promos already: "R-r-r-r-umble at the River!", voiceover provided by that monster truck show guy. Not to be melodramatic about a computer game, but this battle was so epic that by the time every last town center was razed most of us were physically and emotionally spent. (Not to mention the distinct sensation of our eyes on fire.) I couldn't entertain the notion of playing another.

When I finally tried to fall asleep several hours later, all I could see were units scurrying across the back of my eyelids. Archers ripping into hoplights with arrows alight. Cavalry breaking through my defenses and hacking down scores of hapless villagers. Medusas turning towering Colossis into crumbling stone heaps.

My only question is: When do we get to do it again?

Back to slaughtering bugs.

Posted by eric at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2005

Health Club Hardships

If you happen to be turning the color of well-done lobster, you really ought to get out of the hot tub. Duly noted.

I sleep now.

Posted by eric at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2005

Blogger Challenge Story

So this is how the Blogger Challenge goes this week:

Hank came from from a long day at work. He entered his house, took a fireplace stoker from the living room, a fork from the kitchen, and book from the shelf, and $1.15 in change from the couch. He went upstairs, ran a bath, and, a look of mixed joy and horror in his face, threw the everything on the floor by the bath. He then turned off the water, emptied the tub, and left the house.

Click more to read my entry. Blame it on a hypercaffeinated insomniac.

"You have to talk to the old man." she said, her voice quavering. She was trying her best to mask it, but was obviously shaken by the news.

"I'll set it up tonight." He said.

Hank closed the door behind her and sat, alone in his office. Gretchen's report was not good: the Lemurians had wiped out another three of the resistance's cells. Worse yet, no one was sure how they had done it. Overnight, all the members of the compromised groups had simply vanished into thin air from their homes and workplaces.

The skies outside his window were gray and soupy, laden with rain but never releasing a drop. Farmers in much of the country had given up hope of replanting crops in the caked earth; even if the rains had fallen, the sprouts would soon fail with nothing but fleeting glimpses of sunlight. It was how the Lemurians had taken control; a food for gas, energy, and minerals program that held humanity itself prisoner. They grew the stocks, and if you weren't willing to cooperative you had better be willing to starve.

Hank impulsively reached down for the gun in his ankle holster, feeling to make sure it hadn't grown legs. As much as he hated to show it, fear was beginning to creep into his psyche, replacing the hope he had once felt as the "people's hope", the headstrong leader of humanity's resistance.

There had to be a mole. Some traitorous sonofabitch, maybe some damned ideologue who secretly welcomed the arrival of the Lemurian Cooperative. Hank bit his lip while and felt his stomach clench as he remembered the first day, the towering ships as they sailed into the world's harbors. The "Invasion from the Sea" -- after all those decades of nutjobs thinking it would come from the sky!

The the resistance's first action, only three weeks before, had been a dismal failure. Hank had led a bombing mission against several of the ships moored out in the straights across town. They had loaded enough TNT onto a tugboat to blow a hole in a battleship and remotely steered it into the smooth face of the largest Lemurian vessel, a towering behemoth with polished blue sides. The bomb blasted an enormous hole in the hull, a gaping wound with small, blue Lemurian bodies tumbling from the wound and disappearing into the water. Moments of jubilation had given way to shock and trepidation as the vessel sank, paused, and then rose from the water -- with the hull completely intact.

Now this.

The clock on the wall interrupted Hank's reverie, buzzing twice at 8 o'clock. It was third shift in the city's waterworks, an unassuming building on the outskirts of town. Hank was a water quality engineer and site manager; his real job doubled as a convenient cover for the resistance's activities. He had control over a small fleet of trucks that could be appropriated if need be to haul explosives. After the failure of the bombing mission, however, they seemed more and more redundant. Brute force wasn't an option anymore.

He decided it was time to head home and nodded somberly to Gretchen on his way out. She managed a weak smile and turned back to her work as 'city main supervisor'; resistance cell coordinator. There wouldn't be much left to coordinate, Hank noted, his eyes narrowing to angry slits. He remembered what it was he had to do.

The old man was an enigmatic figure, always there when Hank needed someone to consult with. Hank guessed he was ex-military or maybe ex-intelligence. A spy? It really didn't matter -- the old man was the real heart of the resistance, and he was Hank's secret weapon. To keep it that way, they'd organized a most peculiar meeting signal: coins on the ground in a public park. Hank would etch a small mark on the corner of two or three and strew them on the ground. The meeting location depended on the number of coins and scratches, a code which the old man had scribbled down in the margins of a worn old Dostoyevsky. Hank had never bothered to read the actual text, he'd never had any moment of free time since the nightmare began. The old man knew something about the disappearence of his people; Hank hoped he wasn't being irrationally optimistic.

Arriving back at his dingy one-bedroom apartment, he grabbed the code book from the shelf and leaved through the pages. Today was March the twelvth, so he flipped to 312th dingy, yellowed page. Three quarters, four dimes. He sneezed into the dusty page, snapping it shut and hunted around the couch for the coins. He looked around to find something to etch with and grabbed a fork off the countertop. His heart was already racing when the sole light bulb in the room popped audibly and left him in darkness. He muttered a curse and decided to scratch the coins in the bathroom upstairs; he could draw a bath while he was working. He grabbed the fireplace poker on his way up the stairs. He was embarassed to admit it, but the knob had fallen off the fixture and the poker was the only tool he could use to turn the water on. He'd been trying to fix it, but there was never any time anymore.

He carefully leveraged the broken spigot on with the poker and set to work with the coins. One mark on the first two quarters, none on the rest. Two marks on each dime. As he finished scraping a long, thin grove on the last dime, the hair on his neck stood up. Someone was watching him.

He grabbed the poker and swung around towards the door. It was closed ; was he so on edge his mind was playing tricks? The feeling remained, and he slowly turned back towards the nearly full bathtub. Fear prickled up his spine as he saw a figure, a blob of water, coalescing into a small, blue form. It defied physics, chemistry, everything Hank knew about how water should behave; but as his panicked thoughts raced through his numb head the figure grew more and more distinct. It raised up an arm to strike at him, and Hank grabbed the poker, swinging clumsily at the apparition. He missed and struck a bottle of soap, spraying pink film all over the figure.

The Lemurian, now appearing almost completely solid, gurgled and lost form. The water fell back into the tub with a crash. Hank was left stunned. The water was still running, frothing the tub with soapy foam. Whatever the Lemurian had used to form itself from the plain water in his tub was obliterated by the thin film. He stood still for a moment, elated. It was beginning to make sense now: the Lemurians, the ships, they were all made massive by water with nothing but a tenuous force holding their form. That explained the ability to miraculously heal the damaged ship in the harbor. It explained how all those resistance members had quietly disappeared; and, to his sudden horror, how they were discovered in the first place. The water works was probably the worst location he could imagine for the resistance's headquarters. There were probably Lemurians living in every damn pipe, listening, plotting. He shut off the running water and opened the drain.

He thought of Gretchen and was struck numb again; she was probably still there and now in grave danger. He immediately dropped all he was carrying; the old man could wait. He ran out the door to go warn her. But he knew, now, exactly what they had to do to fight back.

Posted by eric at 12:13 AM | Comments (4)

March 11, 2005

The Link Corral

Yes, the weekend is almost upon us. Time to relax, unwind, and do your taxes. You haven't done your taxes yet? Procrastinator.

What a horrible death notice: Actress hit in face by volleyball in 'Meet the Parents' dead at 31. On the other hand, if they simply said "Nicole DeHuff, actress, dead at 31", nobody would ever read the article.

I also find my reaction to the news to be remarkable. Part of me feels bad that someone so young had the misfortune of catching a mean bug and dying, but the rest of me can't bring itself to care much. Why is this news? Why make a private tragedy public? "Woman who landed some bit roles dies" strikes me as a little cruel, but it's the essense of the story. This, on the other hand, well.. Heh.

Microsoft has a 'technology sandbox' version of a web RSS aggregator: Start.com. Quite the slick application AND it works in Firefox, which scores some big points with me. It also integrates web searches and image searches into the same interface. All of this begs the question: why does MSN Spaces suck so much?

It's not quite up to the level of Bloglines, which is the aggregator I currently use (no full text feed displays?), but I may start using it as a sort of search/info aggregator since MSN search has vastly improved. Speaking of which, this is a reminder to myself to help fulfill my role as Regal's UFO advisor: UFO Evidence. Delightful.

There is such thing as a good fatwa. Who knew?

For some reason, I can't stop belaboring the point -- Here's an article from a Harvard Professor of Psychology about the Larry Summer's gender comment "controversy". Clip, speaking of fatwas:

The analysis should have been unexceptionable. Anyone who has fled a cluster of men at a party debating the fine points of flat-screen televisions can appreciate that fewer women than men might choose engineering, even in the absence of arbitrary barriers. (As one female social scientist noted in Science Magazine, "Reinventing the curriculum will not make me more interested in learning how my dishwasher works.") To what degree these and other differences originate in biology must be determined by research, not fatwa. History tells us that how much we want to believe a proposition is not a reliable guide as to whether it is true.

Let's do some more hot-button type stuff: Free Speech For Me But Not For Thee. Note that this isn't about the equivalence of groups like "MoveOn" or "Swift Boat Veterans", this is about the laws that helped create them.

I've said quite enough, except to mention the weather. Every once and awhile Mother Nature turns into a rampaging, hormonal lady-of-the-night -- and March in Minnesota is ground zero. Have a nice weekend.

Posted by eric at 02:15 PM | Comments (5)

Scent of a Robot

Great music video about a guy who discovers, well, he's a robot. There's some "tight" music and some "hip" robots dancing. Fun animation. I have no idea how large the video is, but it's big. From the Professor.

Posted by eric at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

No more CNBC Power Lunches

Well, it finally happened: My ambiguously-legitimate free cable has been disambiguated out of existence. A little surprising, came out of left field -- but also a mixed blessing.

Since they hooked me up to the outside antenna, I finally can use that HD tuner I bought last year but had stowed in the closet for lack of signal. CSI in hi-def is something to behold. It makes the little A/V geek in me want to jump out and do a dance in supplication to the gods of anamorphic 720p. No more squashed or stretched faces trying to get a regular picture to fill the screen. Every drop of blood and fiber of hair accounted for. It makes the picture off a DVD look positively crummy.

Of course, this means I'm gonna have to bittorrent Battlestar Galactica. Or maybe pay for cable. Bah.

Added a link to Becka's New Place. Anyone who randomly posts pirated Counting Crows mp3s is okay in my book. (Though I can't help but wonder if the blog's name is somewhat temporally-limiting.)

Posted by eric at 09:14 AM | Comments (3)

March 10, 2005

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

Yeah, I admit it. I listen to Trance music constantly. My siblings think someone must have fed me a nice tab of acid, but in my defense I can trace my current obsession all the way back to an odd character by the name of Randall. He always had a camel pack with him (with the wraparound straw), even during Sunday services. There was Randall, with his backpack.

He told me I should try some Moby and it was all downhill from there.

Enter: Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. If ever you were curious about the origins of electronic music of any stripe, this is what you need. If even you're not -- how can you resist a diagram like this?

He bars no holds, either. One variety's description reads:

Somehow, a mutant form of trance evolved from Epic drenched itself in the breakdown-build-anthem formula and senselessly driven it to new, insane levels of assinine. In doing so, it stopped becoming trance. Some songs have ridiculously long and drawn out breakdowns, lasting well over 3 minutes or almost half the length of the entire fucking track. Each new release tries to outdo last week's hit anthem, reaching higher and higher, making the genre louder, fuller, and more exalted and grandiose. Good god, does this ever suck. The way megatrance producers shamelessly cash in on a particular sound is insulting sometimes. How can anyone take this trite, derivative garbage seriously? What the hell is this, anyway? It's bombastic melodrama; a pompous, over-the-top, monstrously grotesque caricature of what trance used to be. The final betrayal. Trance is dead.

Which is a bummer, I kind of enjoyed the examples of that particular trite, derivative garbage.

Posted by eric at 04:41 PM | Comments (4)

Non-PL-Geeks need not apply

A friend of mine has an ugly Pug named Jabba. She's a sweet dog, but to be honest I find the term "ugly Pug" redundant. We've done quite enough to dogs without giving them faces squashed into flat uncanine-ness.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, here is Pugs. It's an implementation of Perl 6 written in, of all things, Haskell. If you're not familiar with the way Perl 6 has been specified, it gets better:

By December 2004, most of Perl 6 has been specified as a series of Synopses. Although not considered final, it is now stable enough to be implemented. Many of the Synopses are based on Larry's Apocalypses. Sometimes the design team releases Exegeses, which explain the meaning of Apocalypses. Pugs adheres to the Synopses, referring to Apocalypses or Exegeses when a Synopsis is unclear or imprecise.

Got that? If I may briefly channel the ghost of Billy Mays: "But wait, there's more!"

The major/minor version numbers of Pugs converges to 2*π; each significant digit in the minor version represents a milestone. The third digit is incremented for each release. The current milestones are:

• 6.0: Initial release.
• 6.2: Basic IO and control flow elements; mutable variables; assignment.
• 6.28: Classes and traits.
• 6.283: Rules and Grammars.
• 6.2831: Role composition and other runtime features.
• 6.28318: Macros.
• 6.283185: Port Pugs to Perl 6, if needed.

Converging release numbers really are the cat's meow, the cherry on the top of this project. Now that I think about it, all software should be version-numbered this way because it implies a final goal -- a goal that, in the case of any irrational number, will remain unreached. Need to know how recent the release is? Forget comparing "2000" to "2004" or "1.1" to "1.2", just look at how long the release number string is.

If it's "6.283185307179586476925286766559", you know it has to be good stuff.

Via Decafbad.

Posted by eric at 12:12 PM | Comments (4)

More hacking and drilling coming from the unit next door, another apparent victim of the sprinkler brigade. Disgusting morning, 35 with two inches of snow melting everywhere. Gave me the impression that the sky had just opened up and retched everywhere having drank too much the night before.

So much for my clean car.

Also: It appears that there is a movie about the Wendigo that roams the woods of northern Minnesota. Personally, I prefer the version that is a 10-foot tall figure clothed in white with a star on its forehead to the version with a person turned crazy and cannibal by evil spirits. I chucked it onto my netflix so I'll find out which one they chose soon enough.

Oh yeah, William Shatner with Ben Folds on Leno -- "singing" from his latest album. Too bad it wasn't the song about death which was much more palpable.

Posted by eric at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2005

Holes Above My Head

I walk in this afternoon and a gruffy guy with a hacking cough motions to my apartment door. He's been working on the sprinklers and wants to show me something.

"We had to cut a few nice holes in the ceiling." One in the living room, one in the bedroom. The fine grit of hacked drywall covers everything. They are indeed nice, jagged holes in the ceiling. Apparently the sprinklers weren't installed correctly to begin with, so he'll be back a couple of times to continue fixing them. Then they'll have the drywall guys come and fix the holes.

In coming in and rearranging pieces of my apartment, I can't help but wonder what exactly they thought -- if anything -- of me. It's obviously a bachelor's pad. A few pictures on the walls, some moderately expensive electronics aside from immoderately cheap ones. Clothes strewn, dishes in the sink. Maybe they chortle at the big framed poster of the Lil A'le'inn. It's not exactly subtle: a big alien face on a building in the middle of the desert. It'd be awesome if they thought it was cool. That said, my boxes of tea and French liquors are well-hidden.

I probably wouldn't perform very well in any profession that requires entering people's homes. I'd be preoccupied developing a psychological profile of the occupants instead of getting any real work done. What if there isn't a single portrait in the entire place? What would that say about them? What does it say about me?

The guys at Regal changed my title. I'm now the official seaQuest AND UFO advisor. We watched Van Damme's "Cyborg". What a great club.

Posted by eric at 11:58 PM | Comments (1)

More social networking

This is similar to FOAF in concept, but the implementation is quite a bit simpler: XFN or the "XHTML Friends Network". Basically all it requires is that you tag your outgoing links with a few descriptors like this:

<a href="http://friends-web-site.com" rel="met coworker">
<a href="http://hotties-web-site.com" rel="crush">
Etc.

The tags are read by an XFN processor and can be formed into a graph or network of who are friends or acquaintances. Simple concept, just like embedding del.icio.us tags (for people) in your links. Speaking of which -- I wonder if anyone has thought of or implemented a sort of personal del.icio.us application that would accumulate tags on links and parse up a nice page.

XFN "Search" Engine
XFN Article

Posted by eric at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

Excuse to Post Links

We all have our doubt, our insecurities. It's part of human nature. We wonder if, when it's time, we'll have the strength of character to do the right thing. Or, conversely, resist the temptation to do the wrong.

On the other hand, some people never consider their own frailties or stop to wonder if what they've done was the for the best. These people tend to wind up on Fark. I salute them for that. May they recover quickly -- perspectives ever altered -- or, failing that, rest in peace.

Posted by eric at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2005

Not blogging, just musing

Yes, another gimmicky post! Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer. I was 8/10, not too shabby.

Looks like I won't sucumb to serial killers posing as coworkers. (Or serial-killing coworkers. Yipes.)

Posted by eric at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

I didn't think I'd score very high, but 10%? If you'll excuse me, I got some beer cans that ain't gonna shoot themselves. (From triticale)

Posted by eric at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)

March 07, 2005

Almost over

One more solid week of studying and I'll be ready to take my "final" final. 2 or 3 hours per night gone in a poof of essay questions can really cut into your free time.

I might turn into this guy.

Posted by eric at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

Cow's out to pasture?

MooCow hangs it up, which I have to admit does not surprise me. I'm going to go out on a limb and surmise that he was already burned out before the coworkers started pulling up pages. That, and if you're not familiar -- let's just say that his posting style was verbose. Spending large amounts of time at work on something that is non-work-related and easily-publicly-visible is not really heathy for conscience or career. (Look at me, typing VERY quickly! Heh.)

I've been doing this sort of thing in various forms for almost 4 years now. It's a coping mechanism and amusement forum, but I'd also like to think I'm better off for it -- better writer, more creative, even more sociable (if that can be believed).

I'd like to think it's sustainable, but it's important to keep your mind open enough to realize when that threshold has been reached.

Posted by eric at 10:25 AM | Comments (2)

Yeah, it's one of those mornings. Someday I hope to be described as "Rich and Masculine" but not in relation to corduroy.

Posted by eric at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2005

Hope for dwellers at High latitudes

Wow.. Early March in Minnesota and it's pushing 60 out. No jacket, fresh air, now-happy clean car.

Oh yeah, and this gracing my inbox. Is subtlety dead?

Posted by eric at 02:35 PM | Comments (3)

Out the door for an Oil Change

What a difference a day -- and a little sunshine -- makes. Yesterday started poorly all around and my dark mood was not heathily addressed by a viewing of "Final Destination". But today; I woke up, the sun hit me, and I was inspired. I finally took care of all those chores and even found time for a little workout. No minor miracles here.

I spent the evening with the Conceptual Engineer, Elizabeth, and JT trying to occupy ourselves. The end result of which was a serial raiding of local supermarkets in an attempt to locate an elusive flavor of soda. Results were mixed; no Pineapple found, but we did uncover evidence of a heretofore unknown flavor "Black Cherry". A better writeup of the action here. Who says that this generation is aimless and infantilized?

Posted by eric at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2005

Perfectly good Saturday and it's cloudy

"I'm going to grad school." A friend told me, "I'm a little disappointed, though, I thought I'd have my MBA done by the time I was 23."

See, she's fallen behind in her plan. It was all sketched out in high school. Get degrees, skip the country. I have to admit listening with some bemusement. Am I supposed to have a plan? She was surprised that I didn't.

I don't think I possess that sort of creativity or self motivation. I can barely bring myself to do the dishes, let alone milestone my future. I mean, sure, I have a vague idea of what I'd prefer accompanied by some basic near-term plans. But if I do anything more than that, I'm bound to be disappointed or get it wrong.

Cute. And this has convinced me never to mention dreams again here. Ever.

Those foxes are so cute that I think I'm going to make one for the sidebar. Better yet, I'll make one that's sharable among several blogs -- but he only lives on one at a time. You attract him to a certain sidebar by clicking to feed or pet or whatever. Yes, I can see it now: GigaPetSideBar. I'll get right on that.

Posted by eric at 01:34 PM | Comments (3)

March 04, 2005

Friday is update day for A softer world. My favorite has to be this one.

Posted by eric at 10:05 AM | Comments (1)

IS IT THE WEEKEND YET?

Bah: Car acting up. Computer acting funny. Bank account sapped. Charlie and Denise... say it ain't so. Love is officially dead.

I need a break.

On the other hand, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers was a real delight, even if the saucer people turned out to be total pushovers. This film was clearly the inspiration for Independence Day, which was one of my favorite movies of the 90's. All the elements are here: aliens demand submission from the earth, blow up important buildings, then the heroes fight back with some boldness and ingenuity.

There's even some moments that surprised me -- like alien abductions and a main character given the old heave ho out of a hovering spaceship. The animations are dead on and while they don't exactly match up with ID4's million dollar saucers, they fit the bill nicely here.

The sound effects did get a little grating, but the flick still held up pretty well on my movie-satisfaction meter: the number of times I check to see how much run time is left. Earth vs. The Flying Saucers was a solid one-checker.

Posted by eric at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2005

Someone finally gets himself a sweet ride

Who is this person? You get one guess. Wrong? The plank for ye!

That's right! It's the man of every hour when it comes to traffic on this page. It's Jon Heder, alive and well!

Modeling?

Posted by eric at 06:11 PM | Comments (2)

Davy Jones' Locker with Ye

Why scrap a decommissioned aircraft carrier when you can load it with explosives and see how much of a pounding it takes before it sinks?

I spent the night on a much smaller ship, wandering through cramped compartments and playing hide 'n seek in and around the engine room and launch catapluts. The size of these ships can't really be overstated. I hope they get some good video of the 'csplosion.

Posted by eric at 05:04 PM | Comments (1)

Sleepless in Syberspace

I know, now, that the tall Caffe Vienna I had while studying at the coffee shop across the street last night was a mistake. Don't get me wrong -- it was tasty and loaded with caffine, just as I ordered. But as I was sitting in bed at 2:30, wide awake, I was having second thoughts.

Maybe it was the chemical stimulation that was keeping me up last night or maybe it was the dentist appointment I just returned from. The thought of the inevitable needle or the drill bit whirring away kept me from drifting off in blissful slumber. Maybe it was the oh-so-cute receptionist with the great wardrobe keeping me preoccupied. She didn't disappoint, but has developed a nasty habit of separating me from a good deal of money. So it's for the best that I only see her over-the-counter.

The couple of projects I had going have crashed and burned for gaggle of technical reasons, but that still leaves the fact I'm hitting the books 2-3 hours a night. That still leaves lots of Age of Myth to be played and lots of netflix to plow through -- tonight's is "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.

It's a tough life. And the novocaine won't wear off for another 6 hours.

Oh, yes: HOOYAH!

Posted by eric at 10:27 AM | Comments (1)

March 02, 2005

Hump day Roundup

This dog cracks me up. Once, her kind were proud members of a race of voracious carnivores with fangs strong enough to tear sinew from fleeing gazelle legs. It doesn't take too much imagination to picture a large pack hunting a small group of strange, bipedal primates who try to fight back with sharp implements, whooping and hollering.

The pack finds them amusing but ultimately tough and stringy.

And now? Well...

Here's another I found amusing for various reasons.

The dangers of being too 'heteronormative': Pinkett Smith’s Remarks Debated.

What else? Well -- middle eastern women, when visible, can be quite good looking. Protests in Lebanon.

An Introduction to Stackless Python. To put it succinctly, my head asplode. Stackless Python is required for microthreading, should you ever need that. (I like the section title: "Assorted horrors of implementation").

Back to it. You too. Shooo!

Posted by eric at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)

For Future Reference

A word to the hapless coder (i.e. me) about Perl:

scalar(@array) is the number of elements in the array. $#array returns the index of the last element in the array. scalar(@array) != $#array is ALWAYS true.

I'm definitely cooking something up.

Posted by eric at 11:06 AM | Comments (4)

More Links for the Grinder

Interesting page touching on evolutionary psychology, with a hint of libertarianism: Enlightened Caveman. I found myself agreeing with a good deal of what he says and it's well written, to boot. Recommended: here and here.

Posted by eric at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)

Carpal Tunnel Happy Fun Time

It's a bad sign when you get to work in the morning, put your hands on the keyboard and discover your wrists are already aching. Just imagine the reaction of any given construction worker/coal miner to my woe: "Poor guy's wrists are sore when he sits down to make a living. Boo hoo. He'd better watch out or his lips might get chapped next."

Phhbt. Fat chance of that. I've got TWO tubes of chapstick on my person.

Speaking of dryness and chapping, it's been a little of that around the blogs lately. What gives? Real life getting in the way? That's no excuse. (That said, this blogging drought could be entirely in my head. Wouldn't be the first time.)

Posted by eric at 09:02 AM | Comments (3)

March 01, 2005

Non-sequitur for Today

I neglected my weekly reading of "The Onion" last time and missed this story: State of Minnesota Too Polite To Ask For Federal Funding.

"Oh, we wouldn't want to bother the U.S. government—they've got more than enough on their plate as it is," Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said. "Most of the potholes on I-90 are less than four feet wide. We get by just fine. I wouldn't want anyone all the way over there in Washington to be worrying about little ol' us."

Well, it is starting to feel that way on a few roads. The horoscope for Aries is pretty spiffy too:

You'll have an identity crisis when you find out your life is just another Internet rumor.

Posted by eric at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)

When The Great Unwashed Decide Who's King

The Blandwagon has a delightful feature up: Faces of Democracy.

A middle-aged man comes to my desk and gives me a surname. I look it up, but there's only one entry for that surname and the name next to it is 'Valerie'. How do I explain this to him? I suppose Valerie could be a male first name in some parts of Eastern Europe, but the man doesn't sound Eastern European, and he certainly doesn't look Eastern European, so I have a slightly closer look and SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP YOU'RE A WOMAN!

Plus it has fascinating glimpses of Australian politics.

As an aside, yesterday was another record traffic day here with like 300 uniques. I had glumly assumed they were all here, looking for that one thing, so you can imagine my relief when I found this result:

search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=lindsay lohan porn

Thank you, anonymous internet perv. I don't know what you expected to find, but thank you.

Posted by eric at 09:55 AM | Comments (2)

Around the world on one tank

It's good to see that there are enough wealthy people who put their money to better use than $10,000 martinis. Yes, better use; this is a delightful combination of engineering, science, and adventure. Swashbuckling in a safety harness. Arrrr.

The Global Flyer site is all around pretty good, but if the control room is so impressive, why don't they have any good pictures of it?

Posted by eric at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)