Argumentum Ad Verecundiam http://www.falseauthority.com/ 2008-06-15T17:30:33-07:00 20.28 http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000124 Just finished my first >20 mile ride for the season. I've been consistently hitting about 19 miles for the last few weekends so I dragged it out a bit.

I got a big complement today, though. I was trying to keep pace with a fellow on a very expensive looking road bike. I couldn't quite keep up with him, but I managed to stay in sight of him for about five miles (averaging 19mph) when I finally caught him at an intersection. He said, "Man you are haulin' on that mountain bike."

"I'm tryin'," I replied.

"Well, you are," he said, head nodding.

Then the light turned green and he totally left me in the dust. But I felt good about it anyway.

Not bad I think. The biggest component of the speed is my new tires. I highly recommend them if you spend most of your time cycling on hard surfaces.

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Commentary james 2008-06-15T17:30:33-07:00
A Quote http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/#000123 "I always admire those who have the balls to be inconsistent."

-Michael Carr]]> james 2008-05-30T23:48:39-07:00 Audio Drama http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000122 I am illiterate.

I've never been able to read well and even at 30 years old I can still count the number of fiction books I've read (front-to-back) on my fingers and a couple toes. For some reason I've always felt a little sensitive about this, the printed word being the primary medium for all things highbrow. The truth is, though, is that just about every story I've ever absorbed has been via audio book.

In addition to feeling inherently unintelligent for "resorting" to books-on-cd, I've had to live with two major restrictions: first, audio books are expensive 5-10 times as much as paperback and second, publishers only hire actors to do audio books if they know they'll sell. I like John Grisham and the like, but obscure, cool stuff never makes it into sound files. limiting my literary experience.

I was reading a friend's blog today and noticed that she said something about her old friends moving into radio drama as a creative endeavor. I was intrigued.

While I'm much too young to have ever experienced real radio drama, I vividly remember having books with a read-a-long tape as a kid. These were much like radio drama and tended to have multiple voice actors and some primitive background noises. I simply loved these things. Audio books, generally having only one reader and no accompanying sounds are just not the same.

Recently, my mother-in-law discovered one of these read-a-longs (on vinyl, no less) featuring Wonder Woman. My daughter seems to like them too and I've been feeling a bit nostalgic. When Muriel mentioned active development of radio drama, I immediately felt excited and stupid (of course they do radio drama, jackass, it's the iPod age).

I started searching out some audio drama and found a huge amount of content available. Here are some links for some stuff that looks promising. Finally! Obscure pulp stories for those of us who can't read.

Dramapod
Darker Projects
Podiobooks.com

Oh, and you'll know it's time to turn the page when you hear this sound.

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Commentary james 2008-04-18T21:32:07-07:00
Matlab Java error on Ubuntu http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/jargobuntu/index.html#000121 Got a similar error to:

awk: program limit exceeded: sprintf buffer size=1020
FILENAME="-" FNR=36 NR=36
Unrecognized option: -root
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

I found a German forum with a solution to this problem. Google translated it as:
For those who have the same problem:
You must install and gawk in the file $ MATLABROOT / bin / awk actiavtion.sh each by replacing gawk.

I'm not sure what that means, but I installed gawk (for some reason it wasn't installed by Ubuntu).

sudo apt-get install gawk

and then it worked. Yeah for German geeks

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Jargobuntu james 2008-03-28T19:05:25-07:00
Lockhart's Lament http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/#000120 This link is to a really interesting and funny paper written by a professional mathematician who decided to teach children.

Excerpt (A catalog entry for the current Trig course):

TRIGONOMETRY. Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory
definitional runarounds. Truly interesting and beautiful phenomena, such as the way the sides of
a triangle depend on its angles, will be given the same emphasis as irrelevant abbreviations and
obsolete notational conventions, in order to prevent students from forming any clear idea as to
what the subject is about. Students will learn such mnemonic devices as “SohCahToa” and “All
Students Take Calculus” in lieu of developing a natural intuitive feeling for orientation and
symmetry. The measurement of triangles will be discussed without mention of the
transcendental nature of the trigonometric functions, or the consequent linguistic and
philosophical problems inherent in making such measurements. Calculator required, so as to
further blur these issues.


www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

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james 2008-03-26T15:53:03-07:00
Spam of the Beast http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/#000119 spam_of_the_beast.png

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james 2008-03-18T22:46:27-07:00
Technical Video Lectures http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000118 I've lately found it useful to watch video lectures on technical subjects partly for personal enrichment, but also becuase my teachers are pretty bad, across the board.

Many people know about MIT's Open Courseware (OCW) Project, which is great, but doesn't have that much video.

This site, out of India has many more video lectures.

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Commentary james 2008-02-22T14:34:53-07:00
Gigapan http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000117 Robotic panoramic camera.


Gigapixel Resolution.


Way Cool.


www.gigapan.org


gigapanimage.png

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Commentary james 2007-12-25T15:11:50-07:00
Rube Goldberg, Composer http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000116 For any of you who haven't seen anything by Animusic, you should check this out.

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Commentary james 2007-12-02T22:04:56-07:00
Great "Books" http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/commentary/index.html#000115 I was browsing a used bookstore today and it occurred to me that all of the Great Books are out of copyright and should be available on Internet. The official Great Books website refers you here, but this site is less cludgy.

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Commentary james 2007-11-25T23:06:35-07:00
HP 5610 on Ubuntu Gutsy http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/jargobuntu/index.html#000114 I got my HP 5610 all-in-one working with Ubuntu today. There is a driver library made by HP called HPLIP that does the trick painlessly. I followed these directions and it worked without headache.

Jargon: HPLIP (Hewlett Packard Linux Imaging and Printing)

Searches:

HP 5610 Ubuntu Driver
HP 5610 Ubuntu Gutsy Driver
HP 5610 Ubuntu 7.10 Driver

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Jargobuntu james 2007-11-04T14:08:02-07:00
On Holiness http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/quotes/index.html#000113 As I began to include the following quote, an odd Christian family appeared at the door to bring me Halloween candy that is emblazoned with their Megachurch logo.

"There's no one in the world more obnoxious than someone really Holy"

Father Lester Bundy
Professor of Religious Studies
Regis University
An Orthodox Priest teaching Buddhism at a Jesuit College

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Quotes james 2007-10-31T18:48:59-07:00
Another from the Quote Book http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/quotes/index.html#000112 Game Theory researchers long ago pointed out that it is impossible to devise a strategy for successfully interacting with someone making random choices"

-James Kennedy, et. al
Swarm Intelligence

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Quotes james 2007-10-29T07:28:52-07:00
A Lesson for Modern Diplomats? http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/quotes/index.html#000111 If your holiness should inflict such a humiliation on the Order, then the is no way I can guarantee that then thousand Jesuits will not pick up their pens to attack this bull in a manner that is certain to prove detrimental to the prestige of the Holy See

Claudio Aquaviva, Superior General of the Society of Jesus to Pope Sixtus V

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Quotes james 2007-10-27T23:04:43-07:00
Firefox Doesn't Function http://www.falseauthority.com/mt-archives/jargobuntu/index.html#000110 Interestingly, when I boot Ubuntu from the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCD">LiveDisk Firefox functions fine. When I installed the system, though, Firefox just didn't connect to anything. After some troubleshooting, I figured out that it must be Firefox itself, as other network functionality worked (installing off the web, ping, etc). I also installed KDE (officially making my computer "Kubuntu," I suppose) which comes with the wonderful Konqueror browser. Konqueror worked fine.

I searched on many strings and got no response and after digging, finally found a solution.


Searched:

ubuntu firefox nonfunctional
ubuntu firefox not functional
ubuntu firefox not working
ubuntu gutsy firefox not working
firefox broken ubunto
firefox doesn't connect
firefox does not connect
ubuntu firefox can't locate pages

the one that finally worked:

ubuntu gutsy firefox unable to connect


This led to a forum in which Freebird54 proposed the following solution:

If it worked OK off the live CD, then it might just be the ipv6 problem - even on Dapper. You might want to try entering this in your terminal window (Applications->Accessories-

You could also enter an address of about:config into Firefox, search for 'network', then double click on network.dns.disableipv6 to enable this option. SHOULD get you going if you haven't changed too much else!

He literally means type "about:config" into the url bar (where you would type www.whatever.com). This brings up some configurations. There is a "filter" filed on the page, into which you can enter "network.dns". This will list only the options that start with that string. Double-click on the one named "network.dns.disableipv6", which will change it to "true".

After this, Firefox works normally.

Thanks Freebird!

Jargon learned: "the ipv6 problem"

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Jargobuntu james 2007-10-27T09:33:14-07:00