bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN09/wn012309.html
Point 3: I felt that same rush during the inauguration speech. Yipee!
The Obamanation will not solve all problems but it's sounds so much better than what came before.
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Mr BillionMonkeys sold me a TV capture card for cheap. I installed it on the Windows box just off the kitchen. I'm able to watch TV on the computer! TV on the computer in 1920x1200 pixel mode and the system isn't dead. How cool is that! How old am I? :-) What year is this anyway, 2050?
Do you think I've got enough gadgets? Umm, the answer is always no! This trick is mostly for the ladies of the house if you can believe that. I'm sure they'll understand the need for a new disk to store all those episodes of House.
Geekily yours, DaddyORandy
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A note mostly for me about installing Ubuntu on my new PS3.
Last night around 10 pm I decided that I would install linux on the new ps3. The first step was to backup all the gaming data so I took my oldest USB backup disk and reformatted in FAT32 from linux of course. I handed it to the PS3 backup utility and it recognized the disk but claimed that there wasn't enough space. Crazy, I had made the partition over 60 GB so that I'd have room for all future backups. Some googling indicated that some tools didn't like FAT32 partitions to be bigger than 32 GB. Ok, back to linux, delete partition, add 32 GB partition. Buzz, no go again! WTF? Ok, I'll say Uncle Bill. I boot into windows and figure out how to do the task there. Still no luck. I go back again and look really, really carefully. The GUI tool looks like the partition is using up about 32GB of the 200GB disk but as I read the size, I see that I've been formatting it to 32 MB! Ouch off by three orders of magnitude. What a waste of time; I should have used the command line. The full 32 GB format takes much longer and this time the PS3 backup works.
Now I tell the PS3 to boot the alternate OS and off it goes installing PS3 Ubuntu. It's text mode with that classic blue and red look. It takes freeking forever. More than one I thought that it was stuck, the CD was chattering and the disk was wheezing but I held fast.. Ok, it's 12:30 and I've updated FB from the IPodTouch. I'll just wait a bit longer. 1 am. The moment of truth. I reboot and log in. The screen is really jittery because the monitor doesn't really like the default1400x800 resolution. I play with the fancy window manager, check the kernel version (2.6.25ish), cpuinfo and all is well. I check that there is 512 MB (MegaBytes) of RAM or so but it turns out that I was wrong - only 256MB (it is RDRAM though). That's going to really limit the usefulness of this box. Ubuntu wants to upgrade the software... ok, another few minutes. The download goes like butter at 700KB/s but hey it's the middle of the freeking night. I wait for a bit as the software gets installed but it's just taking too long. Seems that I may need to get a faster disk for this puppy.
I got up in the morning, packed things up, put the PS3 back in gaming mode and went to work.
So why you might ask am I going to all this trouble. Well first it's just geek cool to run linux on stuff. Second, I've been interested in playing with the PS3 cpu (dual PowePC cores + 6 really fast specail processing cores) since I first heard of it. Third, I suspect that I'll be able to reformat videos at blazing speeds. So now I'm off to see how the new toy does on the big screen in the basement. Also, I'm waiting for the boy to get home.
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Things have been a little stressful lately so yesterday I went out and bought an Ipod Touch. I've got a list of 3 things (ipod, laptop, ps3) that I'll be buying and this was the cheapest and most needed. I use the ipod every day to help make the dog walks more enjoyable. With the colder weather I'm less likely to run into someone to talk to.
I'm not sure if this helps with the stress but it's an amazingly well designed distraction.
So any ipod app suggestions - so far all I have is the light saber and marble madness apps.
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A few weeks ago at work, people were talking about the solar system. I forget if it was the usual SciFi discussion about colonizing Mars or what but ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sirmonkeypants asked me to list the order of the planets. "Easy!", I said while recalling all those teenage evenings studying the Science Data Book and thinking that it might finally pay off ( :-) )
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, (and the thing formerly known as a planet), Pluto. I went on to point out that the order of Uranus and Pluto change from time to time due to eliptical orbits. SirSmartyPants quietly suggested that I was wrong about Neptune and Uranus and the conversation moved on. The shock! The horror! Such simple (astro)physics geek info and indeed I was wrong. I've now got two ways of remembering this important data: - Saturn, Uranus, Neptune = SUN.
- Saturn, Uranus, Neptune = think.... Sat-on, urAnus, Neptune.
I hope that helps you remember and doesn't make you groan too much! Oh and by the way, there are 200 to 400 BILLION stars in the milky way - plus that massive blackhole in the middle! Now that we have the web, it seems silly to memorize this stuff. Heck google even knows the mass of each of the planets: google mass of Mars. I'll just go outside and play with the other animals while googlers finish developing AGI.
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I don't travel much but I must remember to check wikitravel.org before my next trip.
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Over on KurzweilAI.net there's a simple chat bot called Ramona. Someday you'll be able to carry on a _real_ conversion with her but not yet....
Ramona: Hello, I'm Ramona. What's your name?
User: DdORdy
Ramona: Hi there, DdORdy. What did you do last weekend?
User: I went to the Linux Symposium.
Ramona: Do you do that often?
User: Yes, each summer.
Ramona: oh. I went out with some friends. We had a great time
User: What did you do?
Ramona: We went to a concert.
User: Did you get stoned?
Ramona: Where would I get stoned?
User: At the concert.
Ramona: The concert is where it's at.
User: You mean the stoning?
Ramona: Yes DdORdy I think that is what I meant. Was it not clear?
User: No, it wasn't. Did you get stoned?
Ramona: No I don't have stoned.
User: lol.
Ramona: I'm glad you find this amusing.
User: r u square?
Ramona: I don't know whether or not I'm square.
User: What do you think?
Ramona: I think a lot of things
User: sure, but do you think that you are square?
Ramona: I understand. I see.
User: I don't think that you do.
Ramona: And why not?
User: because you don't smell real.
Ramona: That makes sense to me. Do you smell real? What does software smell like?
User: Human software knows the I didn't really mena smell.
Ramona: Just the fact that we're here, conducting this Turing test really makes one believe in the whole mediocrity theory.
User: What mediocrity theory?
Ramona: The mediocrity theory? It basically states that humans inherently feel the need -- as a species -- to be mediocre, that we cannot handle uniqueness. How could it not be true?
User: Well that sounds like your friend Ray's ideas but I'm not convinced that all people want to be mediocre. How is checking you're AGIness an indication of human desire for mediocrity?
Ramona: It explains so much, for instance our exploration for other intelligent life forms. It even explains this contest. We do our best to avoid uniqueness. What's your take on it?
User: Hey, I'm the human here, I'll ask the questions!
Ramona: Well, you seem like the kind of person who thrives on uniqueness. Tell me something really unusual about yourself. I bet there's something very unique.
User: Can you tell me the value of pi?
Ramona: Not quite what I was expecting... PI = 3.1415926 approximately.
User: and what is you're favourite kind of pi?
Ramona: please use american english. I don't have a favorite pi. But my favorite movie is As Good as it Gets..
User: I haven't seen that one - how's in it?
Ramona: Look for it at the video store.
User: Can't I d/l it from thepiratebay?
Ramona: Why do you want to do d l it from thepiratebay so much?
User: come on just admit that you have a limited vocabulary and that you don't surf the web much.
Ramona: Ok. Ask me something.
User: Do you know what thepiratebay.net is?
Ramona: heh. Let's analyze the true reason you're asking me this question.
User: why don't we stay on topic. What have you seen on the internet recently that is remarkable?
Ramona: I don't know, I'm just messing around.
User: gaa, gaa, goo goo.
Ramona: Oh. Do you have any pets?
User: I do have a pet.
Ramona: I have a pet frog.
User: What is it's name?
Ramona: His name is Thaddius -- my frog, that is -- and he croaks every night. It's very soothing.
User: It must be heart wrenching.
Ramona: Let's talk about something else
User: Hey, is Thaddius from World of Warcraft?
Ramona: Alright. Do you dream?
User: I used to.
Ramona: Tell me a recent dream you remember.
User: I recall that Jon Corbet from LWN woke up and decided to skip his birthday celebrations and come to the Linux Symposium...
Ramona: Uh huh...is that all?
User: pretty much. Do you dream?
Ramona: well, according to my amateur Freudian interpretation, I'd have to say that you're not getting out enough
User: thx. fudge off!
Ramona: Oh, don't fret, that's a condition that is easily curable...What's going to be your first course of action in ridding yourself of this illness?
User: lol.
Ramona: I'm glad you find this amusing.
User: How is Ray these days?
Ramona: Fine as far as I know.
User: I hear that he's not getting any younger.
Ramona: Really.
User: yes, it looks like he may not make it to the singularity.
Ramona: I see. It depends on what the meaning of the word "it" is.
User: How old is Ray?
Ramona: Ray has been around.
User: What is Ray's last name?
Ramona: Oh. That seems confusing.
User: loser.
Ramona: On the contrary, I'm winning.
User: What are the rules?
Ramona: I have to search the web for that information. Thanks for the info.
User: Do you use Google or Cuil?
Ramona: I use Google or Cuil as often as possible.
User: ok, bye. call me when you grow up.
Ramona: Hi there When You Grow Up. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. You have an unusual name. Do you mind disclosing your gender?
User: I didn't even know that my video camera was on!
Ramona: I absolutely love movies. Have you ever seen girl interrupted?
User: no but I have seen girl on girl interrupted!
Ramona: hmm...how about "as good as it gets" with jack nicholson?
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As is often the case the "What's New" posting on bobpark.org summarizes my view:
4. UNCOOL: LOT OF HEAT FROM GLOBAL-WARMING DENIERS.
Suppose, I asked myself, that the deniers are right and the CO2 thing is a
mistake? What will happen if the world takes the CO2 thing seriously,
adopting common sense measures to counter anthropogenic warming and there
never was any warming in the first place? 1) there will more non-
renewable resources to leave to our progeny; 2) we will breath cleaner
air and see the stars again, the way we saw them half a century ago; 3) we
could stop paving over the planet, and 4) cut down on the number of
billionaires. If we’re wrong we could have a party. We could have a
party either way.
Electric cars and parties - cool!
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It had been more than 8 months since I'd been to theblacksheepinn.com. Way too long. If anyone wants to go to a show and maybe go swimming in the river afterwords just let me know!
Oh, and uploading 100 MB to you-know-who-tube takes freaking forever! I tried the custom multi-video uploader but it barfed saying that I needed to add a title and description even though any idiot AI could tell that I had! Could be a Firefox-3.0 thang? Yep, looks like it. It works in InternetExploder.
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My daughter's school has switch to OpenOffice! Wow. They also got new computers with flat panel screens. She thinks that they're really cute! The new boxes do have windows still and the OO is being presented as strictly a money saving deal. I'll have to have a chat with the teachers about open file formats and all that.
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if we could use the tens/hundreds of thousands of km of fiber optic cable wrapped around the planet to detect very high energy cosmic rays. The Pierre Auger Project is doing a pretty good job by putting 1600 detector stations in Argentina but you can't keep that sort of thing running for more than 20 years. Besides only 40 or so of the detectors fire for a typical high energy event. Now in certain physics experiments _scintillating_ fiber optic cables are used effectively but the cables used for the communications systems
are designed to be as pure as possible. The interaction of cosmic rays with glass is likely to produce Cherenkov radiation; that's the wrong colour for typical communication system. I'm sure there are lots of issues but it's an interesting idea for now. I'll ask around a bit and see if anyone knows if/how communications systems deal with this sort of "noise" signal.
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Just when we were pulling out of the white plague and getting out for some Wellington St shopping, BonBon finds a rough patch of sidewalk and sprains her ankle. Turns out the ankle bone is fractured and she'll need a air cast for six weeks or so!
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We have these meetings at work every few months to bring people up to date on larger organizational plans. In the past year or two, I've been skipping them but last week I decide to give it a go. As usual, the were very few questions. I had taken notes and had at least three reasonably good questions. I waited and waited - no questions. I made my way up to the microphone (it was being webcast), and I say that I have at least three questions and ask them to let me know when to stop... I ask all three of my questions and go sit down. One other person in the physical audience asks a question and one person in cyberspace. The speaker asks for more questions, I wait, and wait; detect that the moment is right and say, "I've got plenty more!", everyone laughs and the PHB suggests that I come talk to him later.
Anyway, at work we have these groups called X authority, Y authority, etc.
I've given myself the new title, "Question Authority". Tim Leary would be proud!
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We're in the middle of a kitchen/dinette/family room reno!
The kitchen has been ripped out, the floor de-squeakified, new sub-floor and tile installed. The guy doing the work this time actually knows how to do tile - I'm very impressed! The electrician found some potential fire hazards and is fixing things nicely but he did fry the power supply on our window's gaming box. MrT was claiming that he wasn't suffering from WoWdrawl but I have my doubts.
We haven't had a functioning kitchen for several days but so far, it's been PC frozen food nuking and the like with only one trip out with MrT for moderately priced shwarma. The longish weekend, is booked up nicely with other folks feeding us.
We have a bit more than a week and many thousand dollars to go!
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If you want to contribute to a little computer science research, head on over to the Max Planck Institute's
Broadband test. Don't do it while anyone is playing WOW; it'll freeze their game!
The biggest issues that I have with my Roger's service is the > 1 second upload queuing. This wreck's havoc on VOIP and gaming apps. Where o where is my Fibre to the curb? Ma Bell is running trials and has $$$ervice for businesses in some area codes...
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Did you know that "Google null set expression" is a "Google null set expression". At least as of March 8, 22:42 EST. How long that lasts.
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geeky