June 15, 2008

20.28

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.

Posted by james at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2008

Audio Drama

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.

Posted by james at 09:32 PM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2008

Technical Video Lectures

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.

Posted by james at 02:34 PM | Comments (1)

December 25, 2007

Gigapan

Robotic panoramic camera.


Gigapixel Resolution.


Way Cool.


www.gigapan.org


gigapanimage.png

Posted by james at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)

December 02, 2007

Rube Goldberg, Composer

For any of you who haven't seen anything by Animusic, you should check this out.

Posted by james at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2007

Great "Books"

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.

Posted by james at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2007

UFOs, Take Two

20070820_ISS.jpegSTS-118.jpeg

With an amazing amount of luck, I managed to randomly spot the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle while walking my dogs tonight.

Though I didn't have the strange sense of wonder that I had the first time, it was still really neat.

For the three of you that actually read this, Kansas City, DC, and LA are all within view for at least the next few days. You can look up the times at Heaven's Above.com.

Posted by james at 09:21 PM | Comments (2)

July 14, 2007

Guerrilla Shelvers

Literary Insurgency or Civil War?

Today at Barnes & Noble:

Shelved in the Math section: I Love Female Orgasm

Shelved in the Physics section: The Bible for Dummies

Posted by james at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2007

Sometimes Behave so Strangely

This show rocks.

Posted by james at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2007

Is "Identified Flying Object" Redundant?

Last week I took an orbitology class at work and heard of a website called Heavens Above. Among other things, they allow people to track satellites.

issgroundtrack.png

Here is the link to the page I got the picture from. It shows the International Space Station (ISS) passing over my house while I was walking the dogs. If you look closely you can see the line transition from solid to dotted, indicating that the ISS was no longer visible.

Track data for the space shuttle is not available from NASA anymore, but it was widely reported that the shuttle detached from the ISS on the day I observed the "UFOs," so the trailing light was probably the shuttle.

Yup. That's why I get paid the big bucks.

Posted by james at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2007

UFOs and Other Curiosities

Today I saw a pair of UFOs. They were flying SSE over Aurora, inline, separated by about 3 degrees in angle. They were brighter than Jupiter, making no obvious noise. At a certain point near the horizon they both rapidly faded in brightness until they were now longer visible. I have no explanation for what they were or what they were doing. That was kind of neat.

It's especially neat since my wife and I have decided to attend a lecture at this year's Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Conference. This is intended for pure entertainment value as well as some fun stories for work. The lecture is UFOs, the Military, and Intelligence--two of which I know something about.

I also realized today that I have a new record for comments on a blog entry. They all come from one person and say something to the effect of, "please make more blogs." So Muriel, this one's for you.

I have had a strange few months. I finished a semester of school, managed to get decent grades, and started a new semester. I've convinced myself again that I'm reasonably bright--something I questioned for a while after basically flunking out of three different masters programs. Now that I'm no longer clouded in academic self-doubt, though, I am no longer motivated to continue school. I've decided that after this (summer) semester, I'm stopping school at least until my wife finishes hers. I'm no longer convinced that school is even a good place to learn about the things I'm interested in, especially since the school has started strictly enforcing prerequisites, formalizing academic snobbery.

I also bought a Bass guitar and I'm trying to chisel time to learn to play it. It's been a pleasant escape. I tell some of my musician friends that I'm dropping out of school to play music. They seem quite amused by this.

Posted by james at 11:02 PM | Comments (2)

March 04, 2007

Which Superspy are You?


Which Super Spy Are You
created with QuizFarm.com

Posted by james at 09:25 PM | Comments (1)

Chops

Today I was digging around from some bicycle chain oil and randomly found my old set of lock picks. For giggles, I pulled them out and tried them out on my front door to see how rusty I've become. It took nearly thirty seconds the first time, but when I repeated the feat for my wife, I picked the deadbolt in under five seconds. I'm proud to say, I still have the chops.

This little victory reminded me of a time in my life when my desire for future occupation was torn between being a Superspy and being an infamous cat burglaler/computer hacker. I often sought out ways in which I could learn the necessary skills which I perceived would be useful in those industries.

I studied martial arts, hung out with the local hacking club, learned to pick locks, scaled church walls in the middle of the night, studied poisons, and even learned how to parachute so I could make a dramatic and surreptitious entry.

As it turns out, I got lucky and karma has lead me toward the Superspy vocation and away from the international crime syndicate. But despite having given up the criminal behavior of my youth, I still find my mind perpetually searching for the hack.

When I worked security in a bank I spent a lot of time thinking about how one might break in; when I fixed ATMs, I planned (with no desire to actually carry it out, mind you) the theft of 1.4 million from the cash machines (I planned on escaping to Argentina); and now I think about how to break in to the building in which I work. I never had any intention of breaking into or stealing from these places but I can't help but think about how one would do it. I wonder if most people do this, or it is peculiar to certain personality types...

In any case, now that I've had some time to play spy and look into how international crime actually works I find that all the stuff I learned as a teenager would be virtually useless in "real" career in espionage or crime. CIA officers don't parachute--they bribe the janitor to open the door. Mafia bosses don't assasinate their rivals with secret poison (though the FSB apparently does), they hire some thugs to do a drive-by, or they blab to the US Attorney and get 'em locked up. It's just how it is.

Interestingly, though, the skill sets of spies and criminals turn out to be similar, just not so flashy. Patience, perception, persuasion--all skills of both criminal and spy. I think that someone good at one is very likely to be good at the other. Luckily for honest citizens, arms-trafficking doesn't come with dental.

So in the end the black-belt, the parachute wings, and the metal cataloge of places where hemlock grows wild have turned out to be more-or-less worthless. But something inside me still is sinfully proud that I still have the chops.

Posted by james at 08:01 PM | Comments (2)

February 05, 2007

Vaccine for Uncreative Blogging?

So I haven't written in a while. Who knows why? But I was reading Mr Pad's blog and decided that I had a rather lengthy response that wouldn't fit well as a comment.

On Vaccine Denial

I can think of two reasons why parents would not get their kids vaccinated. One is very rational, one not so much.

First the irrational. I've had to take my daughter in for her shots several times at this point, and I'll have to go again this Friday for her two-year set. I'm not looking forward to this. Having to hold down your kid, kicking and screaming, while some cold-handed stranger shoves sharp metal barbs into her thigh is about the most traumatic thing you'll do this year. It's really horrible. Some people probably don't want to go through such trauma. It's illogical, but it's a very realistic response when you consider all the strange biology that goes along with protecting your offspring.

But there is also a very, very rational reason to avoid vaccination. It goes like this:

Assume for a moment that vaccine for a particular disease works perfectly (i.e. no person who gets the vaccine will ever get the disease). Assume also, that the disease only exists in humans and that everyone in the world, except you, has already got the vaccine. Now, account for the fact that vaccines are slightly dangerous and can possibly kill you, albeit with very low probability. No you should ask yourself: Should I get the vaccine?

The obvious answer is, "no." Why? Because there is no way you can possibly get the disease, meaning the probability of dying from it is zero, and in not taking the vaccine, the probability of dying from the "cure" is also zero. Also, we save the money on buying the thing, but if you're the last person in the world who needs it, you might find it on sale.

Now, if we flex the assumptions a bit and say that MOST of the people in the population are vaccinated and that the vaccine works in most of the people who got it, should your choice to not get the vaccine change? I'd say usually yes, but not necessarily. I feel pretty comfortable having not had the smallpox vaccine, but I still get a flu shot.

Am I irrational?

Posted by james at 10:07 PM | Comments (2)

December 09, 2006

My First "Anonymas" Comment

I got a comment on an old blog today from someone called "Annonymas." It's on a two-year old entry called Autopsy, a nanofiction blurb. Since it's old enough that most people won't see it, here's the text:

I was wondering why younge juvenilles go out and kill animals...


You can read my new friend's wholesome blog here.

Posted by james at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2006

"Real" Estate

Today I spent more money than I've made in my entire life, all at once. With it I (or rather a bank) purchased a piece of Real Estate. I've always wondered in what sense the word "real" should be taken. Is there "False Estate," or perhaps "Imaginary Property?" If anyone knows the etymology, let me know.

Buying a house is part of Hollywood's idea of the American Dream. It's a strange dream--wanting to spend that much money, wanting yardwork, and assuming risk. I never wanted to buy a house. Of course, I never wanted to have kids either, but that turned out to be amazingly cool. I'm hoping the Real Property turns out to be a Real Boon.

If anyone's interested, I have a few notes you should re-read before buying a house:

  1. Make sure you don't have a divorce on the horizon. House buying is the most stressful thing my marriage has seen. You will fight about it.

  2. Hold out for classy people to work with. Mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and similar types are generally slimy, nasty people who are out to screw you. Let yourself be picky and don't use someone's services because they were the most pushy. Find someone good.

  3. Rethink your conceptions about the "niceness" or "ghetto-ness" of certain areas. I've found neighborhoods I liked in every city I checked. My new house is in Aurora, a place I generally hate, but I really like the neighborhood. The commute time also got shortened by 90%. I now get to have an extra 10 hours every week and feel like a good little tree-hugger.

  4. Make sure you have no desires to continue a social life because you will be broke for many years. Everyone who has similar tastes to you probably makes the same amount of money, which means everything you like will be just a little too expensive.

  5. House hunting sucks

For those few of you left in the world who are both friends and locals, expect an invitation to a house-warming party within a few months.

Posted by james at 09:13 PM | Comments (3)

August 16, 2006

My Kind of Panhandler

During recent surfing, I found this great picture.

Posted by james at 09:06 PM | Comments (1)

July 19, 2006

Famous Last Words

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:
"Tell them I said something."
What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Posted by james at 05:45 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2006

Jarrad's Little Soundtrack Game

Mr Pad suggested creating a life soundtrack. Here's a stab at mine.

Opening Credits: Best I Can--Queensryche

Waking Up: Also Spake Zarathustra (The opening song from the movie 2001)--Karajan/Strauss

Falling in Love: Turn Me On--Norah Jones

Fight scene: 5 Minutes Alone--Pantera

Breaking up: My Girlfriend's Dead--Vandals

Bad Breakup: It's Probably Me--Sting/Clapton

Missing Someone/Feeling lonely: Unforgetable--Nat King & Natalie Cole

Getting back together: N/A

Secret Lust: Something I Can Never Have--NIN

Life's okay: What a Wonderful World--Louis Armstrong

Walking through the city: Where the Streets Have No Names--U2

Mental breakdown: Pull Me Under--Dream Theater

Traveling Montage: Road to Nowhere--Ozzy (This is especially true in Alice Springs--Jarrad might have "been everywhere" but he's not yet been here to Nowhere)

Driving Flashback: Bermimbau Jam--Kodo

Making art/writing/music etc: The Story of Isaac: Suzanne Vega (Written by Leonard Cohen)

Working for the man: Dopeman--Less Than Jake (There's a reason "special arrangements" in the government are referred to as "Drug-Deals."

Partying: Whistling in the Dark--TMBG

Regretting: Photographs & Memories--Jim Croce

Long night alone: Shape of My Heart--Sting

Final Battle: Infra-Red Combat--Front Line Assembly

Death scene: Tango 'till They're Sore--Tom Waits

End credits: Fade to Black--Metallica

Posted by james at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2006

Canberra: The Real "Biggest Little City in the World"

Canberra is the nation's capital. It was planned by, ironically, an American and is still a long way off from growing into itself. There are about 325,000 people in the city, but it feels like a city 1/10th that size. It's were I to imagine a post-apocalyptic city it would look alot like Canberra.

As the capital, Canberra has all the government buildings and many of the national museums and monuments. The War Memorial is also a museum and has the best technology integration I've ever seen. Multi-media is seamlessly woven into the exhibits and you hardly notice the novelty--it's quite well done. One particular show had audio and video from a WWII air raid projected on a two story wall with full surround sound and supporting theatrics like searchlights in the mueseum to match searchlights in the film. It was most excellent.


If you end up having a choice between touring Sydney and touring Canberra, I highly recommend the latter.

Posted by james at 07:31 AM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2006

Sydney: Ass-Cracks for All Ages

On the scale of someone raised in western North America, the city of
Sydney is quite old. It has many of the things I find appealing about old places: brick/cobble streets, strange nooks that an urban planner would find revolting, a spiffy iron bridge. But like most pseudo-old cities in the states it's desire to be perceived as modern has destroyed all traces of age-acquired coolness.

Were it not for the obvious difference in accent, it would be quite hard to tell Sydney apart from any other WASP town. Australian tourists and city-folk are every bit as bigoted, sexist, and xenophobic as their american counterparts, but there are a few small differences worth noting:

Overall, I would not have Sydney on my list of places you must see before you die. It's a really long flight (~14 Hours) there's not much there you couldn't do in, say, Seattle. If you're a biologist, though, you might have a different opinion.

P.S. The Opera House is cool.

Posted by james at 04:46 AM | Comments (2)

May 14, 2006

Requiem

On a bitter cold evening in February 1993 my father drove me to a non-descript commercial building in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. There was an Italian restaurant on the road front. I must have rode by it a thousand times but I'd never noticed it, probably because I wasn't yet old enough to frequent any restaurants. Behind La Cosa Nostra, or whatever it was called, was a series of small businesses that didn't require storefront attention: some kind of wheelchair repair store, a pawn shop specializing in denim pants, and a Kung Fu school.

Somehow or another, I'd heard that this particular Kung-Fu school taught an especially effective brand of Kung-Fu that I, as a wanna-be tough guy, should learn. My wanna-be tough guy father was was extatic; since I wasn't going to play football, this was the next best thing.

The air was cold enough cause piercing pain in your ears on the short walk into the parking lot. The glass was frosty with the condensation from the sweaty, humid interior. The blinking "I Buy 501's" sign next door showing up clearer than the dragon decal scotch-taped to the front window. We entered.

I wondered who all these people were. They wore black or white, with various colored belts. Lots of fake-looking mass produced karate weapons adorned the wall, along with pictures of an old, half-naked (though fit looking) asian dude. What was the belt progression? Why are only black belts wearing black? Does that mean "teacher?" Who's the guy in the pictures? Why is everyone here over 40?

One of the men in black came to chat with us. I assumed he was the teacher but later learned he's the teacher's brother. We read a badly written synopsis of this flavor of Kung-Fu. My dad signed an insurance waiver and forked over $40.00.

Thus I began my first inquiry into "real" martial arts, which I have continued off-and-on ever since.

Kung-Fu was the only real, steady part of my life from then on. When I was away in the Army, it was Kung-Fu that I missed from home and not much else. Kung-Fu made me confident, fit, and changed my composure. It introduced me to probably half of the really great people I've ever known and taught me more conspiracy theories than Chris Carter. It was the best thing I ever did with myself during my teenage years.

Yesterday I ran into a classmate at the hardware store who told me that the Kung-Fu school is closing. My first reaction was to doubt this, both because the school's been going out of business longer than Apple and the class mate is generally known to be full of shit. But then he cited the close date-- July 1, 2006. Apparently the Kung-Fu teacher's wife got a good job offer in Wyoming and they sold the farm.

I'm glad for the teacher and his wife. For them personally, this is an awesome opportunity. But for me, it's the end of one of the few eras of my life worth remembering. Like a good funeral, it's a celebration of what-was and an acknowledgement that the time of what-will-be is over.

And it's a real fucking bummer.

So thanks to Master Bob, for all you've done, and to all you of that sent me home limping and pissing blood.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

KFSS
1989(?)--2006

Posted by james at 10:51 PM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2006

Little House Rejection

Well, it looks like the house bid was considered a joke. The seller's real estate schmuck didn't even bother responding to us until a full day after the deadline.

The upside is our real estate non-schmuck showed us several houses in our price range. They're in run-down neighborhoods, but at least you can buy crack across the street...

Posted by james at 05:13 PM | Comments (2)

April 16, 2006

Little house in the Suburbs

We put a bid in on a house today. It's little, but quite livable and with a big chunk of dirt

We significantly underbid the asking price, though, so we're not to confident in getting it. We'll know by 5:00pm (MST) tomorrow, though, so I'll let you (that's both of you) know tomorrow night.

Posted by james at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)

Brains. Braaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnss.

For a while when I was young, I tried hanging out with the local hacker scene. I was generally unsuccessful at convincing them of my inherent k3wlness. I have only a few memories of the group meetings, but I remember once of the guys went by the nic "DeadKat." This is my (wife's) tribute to well, him, I guess.


Posted by james at 10:38 PM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2006

Calling all Dorks

Calling all dorks, calling all dorks. Has your dork meter been running in the yellow lately and you want to push it into the red? I've got a deal for you.

SETI at Home supports teams now. Some clever canadian named a team "Qwghlm Observatory." I just had to join. If you are a Qwghlmian or a fan of Qwghlm you should join too.

Posted by james at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

March 11, 2006

No, Really, Role Playing Games don't Courrupt Kids

I found a list of famous gaming dorks on Wikipedia. One of those listed is porn star Asia Carrera.

I'm imagining arguing with an uncertain fundamentalist parent:
"Yes, I know a porn star also plays this game, but she's a really fucking smart porn star!"

Posted by james at 10:27 PM | Comments (1)

March 09, 2006

No Means No?

I got in trouble monday, for allegedly not allowing my travel companion to use the car during our recent trip. I told the boss that I asked on umpteen occasions if the travel companion wanted the car and in each case she said, "No."

The boss replied, "well, you need to look into her eyes and see what she really means."

I live in fucking Office Space.

Posted by james at 12:36 PM | Comments (1)

February 28, 2006

.

Washington.
Caffeine.
Rollerons, cool.
Three thousand dollars
for a cup full of drool.

Posted by james at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2006

Resolution Plinking or Your Wishing Sucks

Sixteen days ago I asked my readers (all six of you) to wish me retroactive luck on a math exam at work. I recently received the results; I got a 15. Depending on who you ask, the passing score varies between 16 and 18. In any case, I failed.

This tells me one of three things: either retroactive luck doesn't work, you didn't wish it to me, or your wishing it sucks. Because of a certain incident in my past involving a a Rubik's Magic Puzzle and an obnoxious Jefferson County Deputy I'm convinced that retroactive luck can work. I also have faith that all my readers, in fact, wished me the required luck. That leaves "your wishing sucks" as the only possibility.

#1 Resolution for the new year--Pphbbt!

In other news, I was planning on taking some tech writing classes this semester but due to a monumental foul up at the CU-Denver Bursar's office, I wasn't able to take those classes

#3 Resolution--pah-tang-thoof!

Jodi's finally decided on an academic path. I'm very happy for her. Actual goals can make such a difference in life. Of course, along with her academic choices goes a serious and long-term financial outlay. This will preclude purchasing anything made by the Apple Corporation.

#2 Resolution--kaput-tah-toy-tah-toy-puthpk!

Resolution #8, assasinating the Vonage Song guy, would surely prevent me from achieving the work-related bullets, so I must regretably remove it.

#8--Resolution--sha-zang-pah-tick-i-pow!

Resolutions 4 and 5 are mostly out of my personal control so, besides the blogging, all that's left is the running and the blogging. I have enough blogs to hold me through till march so all that's left is to run. I hate running, but it feels so good when I stop.

I guess I'll be getting some new shoes.

Posted by james at 07:27 PM | Comments (3)

January 28, 2006

Google Maps Rocks

For those of you who are in college or the stone age (is there a difference?) and have not checked out Google Maps, you need to. After the novelty of seeing your house on satellite imagery with streetmap overlay wears off, you can start looking into the cool stuff.

So far, the stuff just keeps getting cooler.

For Denverites, check out Alkemis-Denver. Try Alkemis-DC if you're in the DC area. These sites pull up a google map of the area with "tacks" placed in key locations. Some of the tacks link you to a live traffic camera at the intersection and some give you traffic info like "one lane closed Kalamath Ave." There is also a sidebar with links to other things like local live police scanner, random local picks from www.flickr.com and other stuff.

All this with no pop-ups--it's pretty neat.

I think I need to switch departments and get into OSINT. It'll be much more lucrative in the futre, I think, and certainily more fun.

Posted by james at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Miller Time

For all ye Padawan who don't remember, there once was a time when T.V. shows were sent through the air like cellfone calls. One of my favorite over-the-air shows was a PBS show called Mr. Wizard. Mr. Wizard was a cool scientist-guy who did experiments with kids in order to get them to like science. It obviously worked on me.

When I got to High School I wasn't quite studious enough to take the "real" physics class but Mr. Wizard had convinced me that science was cool. I enrolled in the what was informally known as "Mr. Wizard Physics," a course intended for flunkies like me.

This turned out to be one of the coolest classes I ever took. The teacher, known only as "Miller" was even cooler than the T.V. knockoff. In his class I saw students walking barefoot on broken glass and stand motionlessly as bricks careened at their noses. He electrified the doorknob to get the attention of the tardy and had another teacher break bricks on his chest with a sledgehammer. It was memorable.

Two days ago as I walked the dogs in a mild snowstorm I saw a man clearing the snow from his driveway using only one arm to push the shovel. On more careful inspection I saw the characteristic limp that sparked a long-buried memory.

Though I rarely think of it, Miller was, in fact, "disabled." He has very little use of his right side and yet somehow manages to ride his bicycle to work 90% of the time. He also can draw perfect circles by affixing the chalk in his right hand, standing with his right shoulder at the board, and throwing his right arm in a circle with his left. It's an amusing trick, but Giotto would be jealous of "Miller's O."

The shoveler in the driveway with the limp--not a winning answer in Clue, but, in fact, my old Physics teacher. He lives two blocks away from me. I chatted with him for a while, though I don't think he remembers me specifically (I can forgive him, he said he's been teaching over 40 years now) he was still as jovial as ever.

He was the bearer of bad news, though, as he's exclusively teaching advanced students and has been expressly forbidden from performing most of his old tricks. Bloody shame--no students will ever get the Miller Experience again. Maybe it's just as well, though. I hear the latest craze in education is to insist that kinematics is only a theory and that the idea that an intelligent mind directs the paths of moving objects is equally valid.


Posted by james at 07:02 PM | Comments (1)

January 16, 2006

Tune Time

If you are a friend or acquaintance and live in the Denver/Boulder megaplex you may be interested in attending Tune Time 1.0, whenever we get it together.

Posted by james at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

Wish Me Retroactive Luck

When I was jumping all the hoops to get my job, one of the necessary steps was to take a "basic math skills test" called the Math Placement Test (MPT). I was told by my interviewer (now my boss) not to worry about it.

It is the hardest test I've ever seen.

It's ludicrously hard--like Ph.D. qualifying exams in four subjects (Ph.D. candidates generally only have to take such tests in two subjects.)

There are 50 questions covering the fields of Abstract Algebra, Linear Algebra, Number Theory, Probability, Statistics, and Combinatorics. Everything a growing cryptographer needs--go figure.

The questions ares so hard that a passing score is 18 correct out of 50 (thats a 36% for you Philosophers). I got 17, and a reduction in the amount of money in my job offer.

It was still a lot of money, so I took the job.

I found out that one can retake the exam after starting with the company, so long as he/she waits six months. After an unbelievable amount of hoop jumping, I arranged to take it. Nothing lost if I fail, a $7500 per annum raise if I pass.

I took the exam yesterday. They updated it, now it's even harder. Hard enough that I won't mind if I fail for the same reason I wouldn't mind failing medical boards, the Bar, or the CPA exam.

The 18/50 passing score, though, makes it possible that I will pass. You can use the Binomial Distribution to calculate the probability of passing by sheer chance. It's about 6.3%.

I have moderately hight confidence that I got 9 problems right. If we assume I actually got 7 of those right an I'm smart enough to eliminate an obviously wrong answer once out of every two problems you end up with a 35.4% chance of passing, mostly by guessing. If I actually hit those 9 problems, it goes up to about 58%

That's a lot better than Vegas. I took it on Thursday the 14th, under my full moon which might bump it up to 58.00042%

Wish me luck!

Afterthought: How to Calculate the Probability of Passing a Multiple Choice Test by Guessing

While researching this, I couldn't find an easy way to do this on the web. I've included this section in case anyone else out there needs to know to do this. I wrote a little Matlab/Octave script:

%Testpass.m
%By Jamesy
%Computes probability of passing a test by guessing
%testpass(numans, numprob, pscore)
%numans=number of possible answers to each question
%numprob=number of questions on the test
%pscore=number of questions you need to get right to pass the exam

function [prob]=testpass(numans, numprob, pscore);

data=zeros(1,numprob);

for count=1:numprob
data(count)=nchoosek(numprob,count)*(1/numans)^count*(1-(1/numans))^(numprob-count);
end

prob=sum(data(pscore:numprob));

Posted by james at 08:31 PM | Comments (1)

January 09, 2006

Lonely Man überbeansprucht Hyperlinks

Nearly every young, non-military-veteran I talk to seems to have a canned line that goes something like, "I couldn't be in the military--I don't like people telling me what to do."

Those of us who've been there know that's crap. Even if you're a hobo, you have to do what others tell you sometimes. Even Ghandi had to answer to his wife.

I think a more respecatble answer would be, "I didn't want to" and a more realistic one would be, "I didn't have to."

Sometimes people say similar things about having kids:

Guess what, guys? Kids are time consuming. And I like my free time and I don't like kids either. I love my kid--she's challenging and beautiful and fun. But I hate other kids.

Parents, too, have something positive that the naysayers usually overlook. I no longer spend nights staring at the ceiling wondering why I can't get a date and what I should do when I grow up, which caused more sleep loss than my daughter ever did.

P.S.
This is funny.

Posted by james at 08:27 PM | Comments (1)

January 08, 2006

Overheard in NY

I was checking out some of the blogs on the blog roll at veritography.com and noticed one called Overheard in NY. It's intuitively named and the content is great. Here's one that jumped out at me:


They Call That Rice


Guy #1: I had sushi last week.

Guy #2: Isn't that like raw fish?

Guy #1: Man, it's so good you don't even taste the raw fish.

Guy #2: Then you should just take the raw fish out.


--Hunter College East-West bridge


Posted by james at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)

January 04, 2006

.... .- .--. .--. -.-- -... .. .-. - .... -.. .- -.-- -- .-. .-.-.- -... .-. .- .. .-.. .-.. .

--. --- --- --. .-.. . - --- -.. .- -.-- -- .- .-. -.- . -.. - .... . .- -. -. .. ...- . .-. ... .- .-. -.-- --- ..-. - .... . -.-. .-. . .- - --- .-. --- ..-. -... .-. .- .. .-.. . .-.-.- - .... .. ... --..-- --- ..-. -.-. --- ..- .-. ... . --..-- .-- .- ... .. -. - . .-. . ... - .. -. --. .- -. -.. - .... . -.-- .-.. .. -. -.- . -.. - --- - .... . .-- .. -.- .. .--. . -.. .. .- .-.-.- .-- .. -.- .. .--. . -.. .. .- .-.. .. -. -.- . -.. - --- -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . .-- .... .. -.-. .... .. ... ... --- -- . - .... .. -. --. .. .----. ...- . .-.. . .- .-. -. . -.. ... . ...- . .-. .- .-.. - .. -- . ... -. --- .-- --..-- - .... --- ..- --. .... -. --- - ...- . .-. -.-- .-- . .-.. .-.. .-.-.- .- .--. .--. .- .-. . -. - .-.. -.-- --..-- .- -. --- .-.. -.. -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . --- .--. . .-. .- - --- .-. .-. . -.-. . -. - .-.. -.-- -... . .- - .- - . . -. .- --. . --. .. .-. .-.. .. -. .- - . -..- - -....- -- . ... ... .- --. . ... . -. -.. .. -. --. -.-. --- -. - . ... - .-.-.- -.-. --- --- .-.. .-.-.- --. --- - .- .--. . -.. --- -- . - . .-. .-.-.- .-- .- .-.. -.- . -.. .---- .---- ----. --... --... ... - . .--. ... --..-- --- .-. .- -... --- ..- - ..... .-.-.- -.... ..... -- .. .-.. . ... - --- -.. .- -.-- .-.-.-

Posted by james at 08:46 PM | Comments (3)

January 01, 2006

New Year: Things to Do

I never liked the word "Resolution" in the context of a Things to Do list.

Posted by james at 09:34 AM | Comments (2)

December 26, 2005

I am an Anachronism of One

This evening I discovered that my old army unit doesn't exist anymore. A troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry was apparently rolled into some other outfit in a scheme that I haven't yet figured out.

I was transferred to A troop when the army decided to disband my first unit, 3rd Batallion, 73rd Armor. Both of my army units are kaput.

Why should this bother me? I loathed 99% of my time there. Most of my "leaders" were masochistic fucks who reenlisted because nobody in real life would tolerate their bullying. Still, I miss some of the old crew. I just spent the last few minutes goolgling some of them (my old room mate is here --he just made E-7!--If you get this, Breaux, email me at james at falseauthority dot com).

I guess when you endure misery with others it creates some sort of bond. Even when you didn't actually endure the same misery. I've now lost my access to partners in commiseration.

Nine days from now marks ten years since I left for basic training. Nothing I did exists anymore. Not even a decade and I'm already an anachronism.

Posted by james at 07:58 PM | Comments (2)

December 12, 2005

Letter of Recommendation

Today I sent a letter of recommendation for an old professor.

Does this mean we're even?

You know, W. went to graduate school. What do you suppose his letters looked like? I wonder if they used realestateese words--you know "rustic"=spartan, "cozy"=small, "country-gent"=semi-illiterate redneck horse's-ass.

Posted by james at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2005

Official Intelligence News

Latest from the CIA.
It all becomes clear.

BTW, anyone know how to make Moveable Type not delete last month's entries from the home page?

Posted by james at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2005

Cabin 12 Journal

11/25/05
The dogs have never seen a llama before. Now, when they go back home, the can tell their grandma, "I got to see a llama." Then they'll say, "grandma, what happend to that turkey?"
Grandma will reply, "That wasn't a turkey, it was a pelican. And he went to Monte Carlo for the weekend."
Then they'll ask, "Are llamas allowed in Monte Carlo?" But grandma won't know.

Love,
That One Family in Cabin 12

PS The spoons are great

* * *

For thanksgiving this year, my wife rented a little cabin at a dude ranch near Glendwood Springs which was quite nice. This is good since the baby got sick as soon as we got there and we spent the whole trip in the cabin. But that's another story. The blurb above is what I left in the cabin journal.

Avalanche Ranch is for sale, in case anyone's interested. It can be yours for four easy payments of $999,999.99. But wait, that's not all!

Posted by james at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

Fear

Some people claim the scariest moment of life is the instant when one realizes his parents' mortality. My parents' mortality was obvious with the nightly worship at the porcelain altar.

My scariest moment was the realization that, both culturally and genetically, I'm 1/2 mom and 1/2 dad.

What was yours?



Posted by james at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)

Quitters Never Cheat and Cheaters Never Quit (Or Something Like That)

Today I signed up for two classes in the upcoming semester. My schedule has me classified as follows:

College: Graduate School
Degree: Master of Science
Major: Applied Mathematics

What classes, then, did this graduate applied mathematician sign up for? Complex Analysis? Partial Differential Equations? Non-Riemannian Hyperspheres? NO! Technical Communication: Editing and Visual Principles in Technical Communication.

Is this the schedule of a mathematician? No. Is this what I want to study? Yes. Why? I'm a piss-poor mathematician.


It's been difficult to admit openly, though the idea must have been festering for a while.

I looked into my initial screening tests at work. In all of the important, technical areas I literally scored the bare minimum--on the nose. By boss told me, though, that I got the highest score of anyone in spelling. This was disconcerting, but I got over it.

All of my coworkers, without exception, loathe writing. I (obviously) don't. I've decided my role in the workplace should exploit my joy in writing instead of my mediocre technical skills.

I can't help feeling, though, that I'm selling out for something "easy." The Communication Department, after all, isn't known for being a repository of world-changing knowledge. I'm pretty sure no technical writers were on staff at Los Alamos or present at the signing of the Magna Carta--but neither was the Buddha.

Have I sold out?

Posted by james at 09:11 PM | Comments (2)

November 13, 2005

Reviving Tin Cannes, Virtually.

One of the few things I remember fondly about the Army was the various incantations of the Tin Cannes film festival. For those who weren't participants, the idea is a group of friends would gather, usually at Engberg's (so I'm told--I was in North Carolina), and rate movies based on a scale of various canned goods. Bad movies were "Spam," decent movies were "Dinty Moore"--you get the idea. I was never present for the real deal; Tin Cannes faded away before I returned from Fayetteville. Efforts were made to revive it, but it never worked out.

I'm thinking of making a virtual Tin Cannes for anyone interested. We can choose a movie once a week, probably a rentable movie so those of us who don't get out much can participate. We could also review restaurants, books, theatre and other stuff. It would be well suited to the since we're all so spread out these days. I think we'd need at least four or five "regulars" and a couple of "occasionials" (like you poor bastards in Med/Vet/Law school) to make it worthwhile.

If anyone's interested, post a comment with your thoughts.

Posted by james at 10:43 PM | Comments (2)

October 10, 2005

All that DnD You Thought You'd Never Use

So you want to be a cypherpunk? Only if you're a gaming dork!

From the October 1999 Cryptogram Newsletter by Bruce Schneier, probably the famous-est cryptographer anywhere.

"Cryptography can be a specialty of mathematics. Wherever you get your degree, both mathematical and computer science training is vital. But more importantly, cryptography is a way of thinking. Elsewhere I've written about why security engineering is different from any other kind of engineering; it requires a certain kind of mentality to approach systems from an attacker's perspective. During World War II, the British found that the best cryptographers were chess players and musicians. I find that good security people are D&D players and tinkerers. The ability to find loopholes in a system, be they mathematical, systematical, or procedural, is vital to a cryptographer." [color change added]

And they say magic isn't real.

Posted by james at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)

October 03, 2005

Lupine Hallucinations

Mr. Pad recently wrote an article remembering the long lost days when a few our closest dorks gathered for a role playing game called Werewolf. Jarrad's description of the game is much better, but there were some interesting phenomena that he neglected to mention.

For this particular game, we assumed the role of Werewolves that were based on idealized versoins of ourselves, placed in this alter-world. Since we intended to play "ourselves" from the beginning, we chose our characters' traits to be as similar as possible to our real selves. This process consisted of choosing a numerical rating on various things like strength, intelligence, ability to pick locks, whatever. We also had to choose a "Tribe" and an "Auspice" that defined our role in the werewolf culture. Tribe was given, since most werewolf tribes are ethnically based--we sort of picked the appropriate ethnicity. We then had to choose an "Auspice," literally the sign of the moon under which we were born. Since Internet was not quite the place it is now, we really had no way to look up what sign we were actually born under, so we picked whichever one suited our idealized selves. I was an "Ahroun"--born under the full moon. Jarrad was a "Philidox"--born under the half-moon. Susannah was a "Galliard"--born under the gibbous moon.

Years later, long after quitting this game, I found a website and looked up the actual signs under which we were born.
Me-July 2nd, 1977-Full Moon
Jarrad-May 11, 1977--Half Moon
Susannah--December 31, 1976--Gibbous moon.

This is a little creepy.

Long later I realized that, at least for Jarrad and I, we used this as a venue to explore our own personalities. Though Jarrad often forgets it, he was primarily drawn to the "caretaker" and "healer" type personae, while I was entirely too macho and usually went for the lug-headed warrior, but was often more inclined to watch and plan than to fight head-on (hence the nickname,"Stakeout").

Soon after the game ended, Jarrad joined the military to be a medic, while I joined to be a Scout/Paratrooper. Jarrad is now in Medical School and I'm a Mathematician with No Such Agency.

While this wackyness certainly didn't happen across the board with our old friends, I find it quite amazing how it worked out for the two of us.

Posted by james at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2005

Scorched Earth

When I was a deviant I spent many hours playing useless video games. My favorites fell into 4 categories--First Person Shooter (Wolfenstein), Real Time Strategy (Command and Conquer, later Starcraft), addictive puzzle games (Minesweeper, Tetris), and a last category that did not seem to live into the modern gaming era: Ballistic.

Ballistic games basically pit players in small vehicles that may or may-not move picking angles and powers to lob artillery shells at each other. The main differentiating feature of these games were how cool and dramatic the explosions and weapons were. The king of these games was Scortched Earth.

"Scortch," as we called it, was introduced to me by a long lost friend by the name of Matt Hudson. I spent entirely too many hours of my life in Matt's parent's basement lobbing "diggers" and "rollers" at him, while consuming gallons of Mountain Dew and perfecting the ancient art of sticking the mini-toilet-plunger to the duct work from across the basement (don't laugh, its harder than you think).

Today I was looking through the open source games and found some interesting things. I got a free version of Doom calld "PRBoom" that replicates the game nicely, though I remember the graphics being better while under the influence of caffine. I then found a Real Time strategy game called "Boson" that looks quite promising and was requesting 3D designers to help create little game pieces. This page referred me to the following site, which is probably the most childishly inspiring page I've seen in years.

Matt Hudson, if he's still alive out there, and Jarrad will probably share some of my gittiness--the rest of you will have to develop it for yourself.

http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/

Posted by james at 12:46 PM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2005

I am a Father of One

Back in the days when I was soul searching, the Army's motto was "We do more before 9:00am than most people do all day." While this is certainly true (for teenagers, at least) I don't think it inspires people to join. The new motto is "An Army of One." I'm not sure what that means, but it's pleasantly vague and leaves younglings with the subliminal feeling that somehow each individual in an Army is important. Now they're short by about 8,000 Armies of One.

I became curious if the Army's recruitment problems come from kids fearing for their lives, or if it's just bad marketing I've come up with my own set of slogans for fatherhood to see if I can affect the numbers of those convinced to compete in the gamete uni-athalon.

1) We do more before the wife and kids wake up than we could even dream about doing after.

2) You, too can be a FATHER OF ONE. There are over 52 ways become a father of one, just look at this deck of cards...

3) Aim High; there's nothing dangerous below 2 feet in this house

4) The Few. The Gluttonous.

Pay attention folks, the birth rate is about to change

Posted by james at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2005

Bits are Cheap

I recently bought a very large (250GB) hard drive for my Linux machine so I would have a place to keep my pictures and mp3s. I now have every song I own and every (digital) picture I've ever taken (this adds up--I have a 4-month-old), along with thumbnails. All this takes up 9% of the space. If only the world were so spacious.

Posted by james at 10:22 PM | Comments (2)

June 06, 2005

Utility

Do you suppose that my grandchildren will some day realize in horror that I grew up in a house without Internet in the same way I once realized my grandfather grew up in a house without a toilet?

If so, does that make Internet the toilet of our age?

Posted by james at 10:09 PM | Comments (1)

June 05, 2005

The Revolting Enemy

Jarrad once wrote an essay called something like "I Have Become the Enemy." In it he lamented about catching himself in a Starbucks, alone, wearing a leather jacket and overpriced sunglasses, and typing on a laptop. He was the enemy--the early twenties version, at any rate--but the new enemy, the late twenties/early thirties version, is me.

Today I found myself strolling through suburbia on a beautiful spring day. With my wife. And my dogs. Any my infant daughter--in a jogging stroller. After dining at Red Lobster and before enjoying (yes, enjoying) a frappuccino.

How revolting.

But am I the enemy? Maybe not, but if I met the me of '93, he'd probably think so.

Along with all this evil, though, has come some learning and some humor.

Example 1. Learning. (I still haven't figured this one out yet).

Recently, while sitting in my wife's lap, my daughter managed to discharge her colon in such a way that the offending discharge was deflected up and out of the diaper (without actually touching touching her) between my wife's legs (without actually touching her either) and onto the beautiful, white carpet.

Example 2. Humor.

Baby shit stains.

Posted by james at 07:12 PM | Comments (1)

April 26, 2005

A new idea for a Cover Band

At the suggestion of a good friend of mine I decided to run one of my favorite songs through a few language translations and back to English to see the result. This song, I think, is obvious but certainly different. I've tried to match the line breaks as much as possible.

We could start a really cool cover band using such lyrics.

There, a its house in New-Orleans
they name to the bottom D Risin' sun
and him its its D ruins of much poor a girl
and me, of Oh- god, me her a-one

my mother a her cutter
them bend that with Jeans
my treasure a her player,
the Lord Unten in New-Orleans

D thing a player required a
his bag and a trunk
and the only one its carry out to him
again blue maintaining only time its if it fills drunk

sound him his glass to D brim
and it becomes to lead D chart around
and D pleasures him of lives
his ramblin ' of city to city of

Oh- not to state ' only abandoned ' my baby sister
to make that this house in New-Orleans avoids makes however,
Risin ' calls well him the sun,

it is a foot on the platform
and the other foot on the train
is back me goin' to of New-Orleans
aiming at the port of this ball and is to connect

a-goin' in of New-Orleans
my race almost run me
is back goin ' to fine the my life
in Risin' is back downwards, the sun

is there a house in New-Orleans,
it it sun of Risin ' names,
it is étée the ruin much girl
and I, OH-God, are me a-one

Continuing the theme, I though it might be fun to try Genesis (You can't make this shit up.)

Next time the young men ini bicycle helmets and ties stop by, you can quote Genesis 1:3, "You Leave!"

1 First god of cultivated skies and
2 with the ground which was the mass without form and gap, cover, and blackening was after the face of the deep one; and the spirit of the god moved on the face of water.
3 and the god said "you leave", are a light there; and there was the light.

Posted by james at 06:52 PM | Comments (3)

April 19, 2005

iLake

Today, for the first time in quite a while, I was able to jog around the perimeter of Crown Hill Park. It was at a pitifully slow pace--but I made it and feel good for it--physically and psychologically.

When I was in High School, my friends and I would walk home through that park, dodging roller-bladers and once befriending a hobbling goose whom we dubbed "Mono-pod" (a play on the nickname of a friend's dog, "Tripod.")

Back then the park was conveniently on the walk home and we didn't need to make a special trip. Now, though, I drive half-way across town so I can jog around it.

I've tried jogging locally, but I hate it. I don't know why, but going to the lake just feels better. It's like trying to get work done while in your livingroom; It's just not meant to be.

Does anyone else have this kind of problem?

Posted by james at 09:51 PM | Comments (2)

March 28, 2005

You can check out any time you like, but you may never leave

3/28/05
So I got this job. It’s pretty cool—ideal, in fact. Excellent pay & benefits (the annual salary is quite close to the sum of my previous life earnings), incredibly bright and cool boss and coworkers. The work is (get this) interesting, it heavily draws on both my educational and military experiences, and I’ll get to eventually get to see the fruits of my labor put to good use in near real-time—possibly to life-saving effect. There is ample opportunity to travel on their dime (but only if I want to) and I even get a 401(k).

Having said that, I’m now going to pose the version of the existential question that we twenty-somethings have blindly corrupted: “Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

The Tyler Durden had this conversation with himself after blowing up his apartment and relocating to a house that reminded me of my old barracks. He remembered talking to his dad. “Go to college,” he said.
“Check. Now what, Dad.”
“I dunno. Get Married.”

That’s where Tyler’s dad stopped offering advice. What else is there?

Breathe—Check.
Eat—Check, check.
Procreate—Check.
Get Married—Check.
Bail out of a C-130 in the middle of the night (33 times)—Check.
Go to college—Check.
Get a job—Check.
Buy life insurance to fund the grossly overpriced baking of my corpse—Hey, that reminds me—here’s my living will, the short, short version:
As long as I know what a plug is, don’t touch my fucking plug. If there’s any doubt, get more opinions. Remember, at least 30 are required for statistical significance.
If I tell you I want to die, gimme a couple months to think it over.
After the fact, put my ashes somewhere where there will never be a subdivision
If there’s a holy person presiding over the funeral, he/she may not make any reference to “the Lord,” heaven/hell, Jesus of Nazareth, or “salvation.” (Enlightenment,” however, may be mentioned)
Make sure that my daughter knows that I love her and she is expected to be fluent in at least two languages and one instrument by age 15

Well, it’s settled then—got a ship to catch. Next stop: Hotel California.

Posted by james at 09:49 PM | Comments (2)

March 26, 2005

Your amusement ruined by Dell, Inc.

c

I just spent the last two hours writing a bunch of brilliant updates to make up for the last month and a half wich were wiped out because of Dell's poorly engineered keyboard.

I was trying to copy (using ctl-c) but the ctl keys on this machine sporadically stops working so instead of copying the highlighed writing it replaced it all--about 5 pages worth-- with the letter c, above.

So take it from me, that c up there is funny and worth reading. If you stare at it long enough, you might even glean some insight in to the last month and a half of my life. But probably not.

Posted by james at 07:30 PM | Comments (2)

February 15, 2005

:-)

I often use the expression “So-and-so doesn’t know anything.” I found an exceptional market for it while in the Army, but later too. I’ve found it necessary to reevaluate this expression, though, after spending a few days with Zoe.

When babies are born, they really don’t know anything, not even how to eat. There’s something about that state that is extraordinarily neat. Zen Buddhist Monks spend their lives trying to reach the state that my daughter lives in now—a child like awareness that views everything as novel and important.

Most of them never reach this state, they just long for their infancy. Learning, apparently, is inevitable. This learning naturally brings bias and interpretation which necessarily limits possible understanding. This is okay—that’s why everybody dies.

There are many things to learn, some more important than others, and though Zoe still knows only one syllable (“La”), still shits in her pants, and still can’t even sit upright, she learned yesterday what may well be the most important skill of her life. She learned to smile.

Posted by james at 07:35 PM | Comments (4)

February 14, 2005

Kid born. Am tired.

Stay tuned for more details.

Posted by james at 05:17 PM | Comments (3)

February 09, 2005

All hail Rowdy! All hail Rowdy!All hail Rowdy! All hail Rowdy! All hail Rowdy! All hail Rowdy!

So I log onto my email this morning, probably for the last time with my full
(because we're having the baby tomorrow) to find an email from the system admin.
of my blog's server. She tells me that some "very silly user" installed some
program and gave the world permission to change things around. Someone in fact
noticed this problem and cracked their server, changing many other user's opening
webpage.

To whomever cracked the system, my hats off to you. Just imagine, you could have
been doing something cool, but instead you got to deliver the following to the world:

rowdy @ 2005 in irc.brasnet.org #nmapsec or #nmap, fuck admins!!!

This message was truly inspiring. I shall no longer be living the pointless life
of an American consumer. I'll devote the rest of my days to the much more noble
mission of helping Mr Rowdy fuck #nmap admins.

Don't write or call--I won't answer. I have better things to do now.

Posted by james at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

February 02, 2005

Open Source Textbooks?

Today while staring off into space, in the general direction of my bookcase, I became slightly jealous of a friend of mine who studied Philosophy in college. All the Philosophy books, for the most part, were written by people who've been dead for a long time, and thus the books are in the public domain and very cheap. Math books, on the other hand, don't follow this pattern and end up being very expensive, even used (though Ebay's Half.com had all my books at nice, cheap prices this time around).

I've always wanted to write a Calculus book that doesn't suck. The likelihood of any publisher picking me up as a writer, though, is NULL for all intents and purposes. I then thought that it might be neat to make an open source text book and problem set, distributed under the Creative Commons license.

I looked at their website today and noticed that a Physics Teacher in California has self-published a series of intro Physics books which one can buy for cheap, or download for free. I just finished taking a look at the first one and I'm quite impressed. He seems to acknowledge that the people that will be using this text might not, in fact, already have a degree in math. I like it.

Anyway, I'm a little more inspired to try to tackle the math book now. The trick, I think, will not be writing it (this can be farmed out, as well) but coming up with an approach that works well. Any suggestions?

Posted by james at 12:48 AM | Comments (2)

January 30, 2005

A Version Aversion or A Flippin' Antipathy

Yesterday Jodi and I (and about a hundred other people) went to the hospital. The mission: flip the kid upside down so that she'd be able to come out head-first, like all the other munchkins. She was having nothing of it. Two OB's and a nurse gave it the old college try for a good 15 minutes before checking the baby again with the ultrasound. I'm not very good at making out things in ultrasound picures, but when the Resident said "Hey, she's looking right into the camera," I was sure I saw her giving the camera The Bird.

Thus it begins.

This hospital won't deliver a breeched baby, so we have to scheudle a C-Section for about two weeks from now. Something makes me think that she'll flip herself over that morning, just to annoy the doctors.


I didn't teach it to her...It must've been Uncle Jarrad.

Babyjoke.jpg

Posted by james at 01:29 PM | Comments (2)

January 28, 2005

Little House in the Ghetto

As I pulled up to the curb I noticed a police cruiser parked across the street.
A Denver Cop stood in the car's lights, taking notes. This is not unusual in my
neighborhood so I thought nothing of it.

As I walked up to my unusually (completely, in fact) dark house the door opened
up a crack. As I approached my wife opened the door completely. With one hand
she was restraining our dogs--the other held a .45.

I wondered what I might have done to deserve such a greeting. A pregnant woman
with 160 lbs. of dogs and a large caliber handgun is quite a scary sight. When
I finally got a good glimpse of her, though, I could tell by her body language
that she was glad to see me.

"Hey Honey, what's going on," I asked taking the pistol from her hand.

"Someone was banging on the wall."

I walked outside with the gun and the flashlight and found nobody outside.
More cops were appearing across the street, though. I put the gun away and
walked outside (locking the door behind me, of course) to chat with a few of
Denver's Finest.

It turns out that a house across the street (surprise, surprise) is the home
of a gang member who apparently annoyed one of his rivals. What my wife heard
was not someone banging on the wall, it was someone shooting into the house
across the street. Usually the gun shots I hear are at least a block away. It
seems that the gang-war battlefront is approaching.

Posted by james at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)