July 2004 Entries
I can't believe it! The rumors I commented on earlier about Bush pushing Pakistan to come up with al Qaida bigwigs during the convention are true! CNN: Pakistan captures high-level al Qaeda operative They have no shame. Tonight just happens to be the biggest single moment in Kerry's campaign. From Coreyh.com on May 11th: I have long suspected that Karl Rove has been dreaming about engineering a high profile arrest close to the election. Even if they captured somebody now they'd probably just come up with some bogus reason to hold him in secret until the political climate is more...
The corporate PhotoHunt team was in Paris at the tail end of a worldwide (work) tour and found a Megatouch 2002 Machine. Even without my help they were able to achieve an impressive international debut with a #8 on the board. Previous EPH coverage here.
I really can't explain why I like this picture soooo much. via Curbed
Hollie just sent this via her new camera phone. Needless to say I'm pretty jealous. I have a Motorola MPX200 from AT&T WS running Windows Mobile 2002 for Smartphones. No camera for me unless I want to walk around with a camera apendage sticking out of the SD slot. Based on a tip from MarcF I decided to take the plunge and install the semi-pirate Windows Mobile 2003 ROM on my phone. It was a seamless procedure once I was able to find the ROMs online (again). Here is an in-direct link.I'll post a recap of how it goes in a week...
Here are instructions for updating the gentoo kernel from 2.4 to 2.6. I'm mostly doing this because I did this wrong about twenty times and it feels better if I share it.
emerge sync
emerge gentoo-dev-sources
Create sym link:
cd /usr/src
rm linux
ln -s linux-2.6.6-gentoo-r11/ linux
cp old config file to new usr/src/linux
make oldconfig
nano /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 (add modules)
make && make modules modules_install
mount /boot
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.6-gentoo-r11
cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.6-gentoo-r11
cp /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub/grub.conf.bak
nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf
Make it look something like this:timeout 30 default 0fallback 1title Old kernel 2.4.xroot (hd0,0) kernel /oldkernelname root=/dev/hda3 title New kernel 2.6.x root...
Not one but two Ali-G mentions in the New York Times.
First is in an Op-Ed by Moureen Dowd who I dismissed inappropriately, but who I have since begun to like quite a bit. She then links to an interview with Sacha himself.
I've been a big fan of his from way back when I used to download the British version off Usenet.
!FB-aye!
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Our travel department booked me on Virgin Air from Hong Kong to London against my original instruction for an American Airline milage partner. I'm half glad they did. The 777 is a great plane - quiet and smooth. They have the new super sleeper cabin on this particular flight. Each seat is its own little cocoon with all the accoutriments. There are three rows of seats facing diagnally. I haven't figured out what all these buttons are for yet. To convert to full sleep mode you have to get up and out of the seat, hit a special button and the...
Co-worker whom I just met: "Where are you from? What accent is that?"Me: "Uh, nowhere, but I grew up originally in southern California..."Her: "Oh yeah, that explains it"Me: "mkay"Her: "Cause when I first met you I thought your voice sounded like you were holding in a bong hit"Me:
Our upcoming project at work will have a clustered SQL Server for a backend. No current production systems currently use clustering and our vendor building the solution doesn't really have the budget to buy cluster capable hardware just for testing. Here's where VM technology comes in. For this I chose Virtual Server 2005 because I could get a trial version and I only need this system to be running for a few months (the trial expires in Jan 2005). On one physical server I build an Active Directory domain controller and two SQL Server 2000 servers attached to a virtual...
I'm getting better at taking pictures of the skyline. The trick is to use the infrared remote control, balance the camera on a railing somewhere, turn on landscape mode and turn off the flash.
Britney Spears' loft at 14 East 4th Street is for sale ($6Million). The real estate agent included these interior shots which prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Britney has no taste where taste is concerned. Also check out the after un decorated version with floorplans here.[via Curbed][realtor listing]
MetroNaps: "the premier provider of professional nap centers in the United States" 1. Check In. Call in advance for reservations or just walk in.2. Order Lunch (Optional). MetroNaps offers everything from salad to sandwiches to sushi. Order before you nap; your food will be waiting for you when you wake!3. Recharge. The MetroNaps Method is designed to let you recharge in just 20 minutes. You’ll feel refreshed without feeling groggy.4. Refresh. Use the MetroNaps Wake Station’s lotion, facial spritz and lemon-scented hand towels to prepare yourself for work.5. Return. Continue your day feeling completely renewed. The whole process takes less than 25 minutes. Their first, just...
Hong Kong Issues Typhoon Alert as Storm Nears City [Bloomberg]Good timing for a flight to London right? The Typhoon scale goes 1,2,3,8,10. In about an hour they are moving to a level 8 which means everyone in the office gets to go home. Chinese Snow Day! When we ask if they think we'll still be able to get on our flights they just look at each other and laugh.
There are 25 channels in this hotel, 3 sports channels. These pictures were taken at the same time on two different channels. That's 8% of available programming.Also available virtually 24/7 is pool (9ball), snooker, or badminton .
Boing Boing points to the dancing almond optical illusion which I had seen before and refers secondarily to the checker shadow illusion which is actually a lot more interesting. You definitely need to check it out - your brain will fight your eyes. At first you'll absolutely refuse to beleive that the squares are the same color. I validated the accurracy of the illusion with photoshop's eye dropper tool and it's 100% legit. Amazing.
Bonus Emo Phillips joke: I used to think the brain was the most fascination part of the human body... then I realized, well look who's telling me...
Rush photoshops Kerry Edwards left, adds "This says it All" title, original undoctored right. Why is it that he gets away with this stuff and if a liberal commentator tried the same move they'd be attacked mercilessly?[via Headwaters Forum] My EPH brain cells are firing.
Joshua Allen of Better Living Through Software talks here about a phenomenon I've railed on in the past. The Scale Myth.
During the height of the dot-com bubble, you could sidetrack any business discussion by saying, “Yes, but, will it scale?“. The common perception was that Internet scale was at least two orders of magnitude larger than brick-and-mortar scale, and if a business launched without being able to sustain a bazillion transactions per second, they were soon out of business. People abandoned all reason when those words were uttered.
In fact, I think decision-makers have to be careful, because certain vendors can make a whole...
We were talking about pinafores at breakfast (the outfit, not the dessert - how do you spell that one?) and the one that defines it for me is Vicki (Voice Input Child Identicant/V.I.C.I actually) from Small Wonder.
Fire up Google, and found this site: http://members.surfbest.net/smallwonder@surfbest.net/index.html
Now I know that it's blogging easy pickin's to go find some fan site for something relatively obscure, but trust me here.
This site really covers more than you can imagine possible about a tv show from the 80's. I can understand a show that came on the air after the internet (web) was popular, people can collaboratively build a huge library...
Had dinner with some HK peeps last night at what our host called "the most famous Chinese restaurant in the world." (Don't ask me) Their specialties are BBQ goose and a "Century Egg" which is a preserved duck egg appetizer. They use some secret Chinese preservation technique age it for a few months - it comes out gelatinous, oh and um black. They do include some excellent special ginger to put on top which makes it all ok somehow. The goose was good although difficult to eat from a texture/presentation to our American point of view. These geese were special because they only this...
Here's a shortened version of my recap of Cathay vs Northwest to Hong Kong that I posted on my internal company blog.
My latest trip I flew a newly retrofitted Northwest 747 from NYC to Tokyo and an older one from there to Hong Kong. I have flown twice previously on Cathay 747 through Vancouver.
[stuff about the seats]
[stuff about the movie selection]
Cathay has great noise cancelling style headphones, Northwest has crappy throw-away ones. Luckily I had my new Bose noise-cancelling headphones with me. You really appreciate quality headphones on a 20 hour flight.
I'm pretty sure the flight...
Global-travel-packing is mentally exhausting. I ask myself "What will I want to have with me, read, listen to, wear, etc for the next two weeks?" A tremendous amount of predictive thought exercise ensues which is taxing on the brain "What if.. what if.. what if" How will I know what I am going to want to listen to next week? These digital music days mean I've grown accustomed to having huge libraries of music available to me at all times. My ultra-portable laptop (Dell C400) just doesn't have the HD storage to lug it all with me. I have to preemptively DJ my trip which...
I've been using Audioscrobbler for a while now to suit my OCD music telemetry needs. It works as a plugin to whatever media player you use, Winamp 5 for me, and uploads every song you listen to for analysis at their site. They offer a host of features like creating a network of like users for you to browse and hopefully pick up new artists and such.
You can browse my history here - and always on the left nav link under Music + (what I'm listening to right now).
Now of course with the massive amount of data available they...
Great writeup from Lev @ Gizmodo on a new robotic device available on the market. I'm all for the future. I mean, look at where you're at, who you're talking to. I like the future so much that I even like the past's futures, futures that were planted with love but never quite formed into a fully blossoming flying cars or whatever. But in the future, as I'm lounging around with my dome open, instructing technicians to lift my brain onto a substrate of pure electrical joy, I will never, ever, ever let a robot cut my dick. I might...
BBC's The Office is a great show, but it can be tough to follow some of the dialog as an American. The BBC has a bunch of videos up of Ricky Gervais explaining a bunch of English lingo for us. Bender Blue Peter Buckaroo Bunse Cheeky C.V. Divv Kid Dixon of Dock Green Doodling Formula One Duncan Goodhew Howard Jones Hob-Nob Knackered Mac Minge Mother's Meeting Orienteering and T.A.s Peter Purves Red Nose Day Scotch Egg Slapper Yates [all in Real format]
I was an Edwards man before the primary so I'm very pleased with today's announcement. William Saletan in Slate makes the point here that Kerry, who has the credentials for the job, isn't so great about selling himself and that Edwards is a great pick to sell Kerry. It all seems more real now for some reason. Go team!
Here's a fun game... First, look up the most popular and critically-acclaimed books, movies, and music on Amazon. Click on "Customer Reviews," and sort them by "Lowest Rating First." Hilarity ensues! It's the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game! The Wizard of Oz - "For one thing, I don't like to watch things with witches in them, especially if one of them is portrayed as a 'good witch' - that's an oxymoron I can't reconcile with." The Shawshank Redemption - "And finally ... what kind of ending is it where two dudes are together on a beach."Psycho (original) - "This film is so boring and...
I can't seem to consistently workout unless I measure it obsessively. (Russian in Rocky V style)A key instrument is the heart rate monitor. I wear mine everytime I run or bike. The older model Polar served me well for a solid four years now, but last week it finally gave way - either that or my heart rate is indeed 224 bpm. Now the search is on for a replacement/upgrade. Polar has an array of options (ahem ahem), many with uplinks to the computer for analysis. I've been toying with the idea of making my workout information public here on...
Out at ol' Irish McBar watching the Red Sox Yankees a drunken guy starts chatting up Vinod and me. He goes on and on and since we're watching the game and not really paying attention, we let him keep going.
At some point he mentions that he collects DVDs and that he sometimes finds himself watching them over and over.
"For a whole year I would come home from work every day and put on a movie and watch it." Us 20%-interested: What movie? "Men in Black... I just had to have it on whenever I was home; I slept...
Our company is undergoing a "server consolidation project" aka "Our CIO thinks we ought to have another mainframe". Yesterday we took a bus load of folks from the IS team over to be wooed by IBM, their snazzy conference center, and the free schwag. They lead off bragging about how many patents IBM submits and segue into how Linux is the future of absolutely everything and it can do magic. Choice quote "Linux is the only OS that can run on devices that haven't even been invented yet." At this point I had to challenge at least some of...