10.26.07
Does Amazon know something I don’t?
Usually I can figure out why Amazon is recommending something to me that I don’t want, but this one is baffling:
09.27.07
Students are Back
Ah yes…school has started. I can’t walk down the Ave without putting myself in danger of having a stroke—people weaving about, stopping abruptly, and just generally getting in my way. But that’s not what this post is about.
I went to my office to print something. I submitted the job from my office and walked down the hall to pick up the print-out. Except the printer wasn’t working for some reason…and I couldn’t see the error because someone (probably some !@#$ freshman) had changed the printer display language to….Russian. I decided I had three options:
1. Write out the information by hand.
2. Try to remember how to reset the printer.
3. Find a professor that speaks Russian.
Three would have been a viable option since we’ve got at least a couple professors that speak Russian. Since the information I needed was only ten lines I just wrote it out by hand. On the other hand I can envision an amusing conversation taking place to request translation services:
“Hi Professor, I’m Matt MacAdam from Physics/Astronomy Computing Services. I need you to come downstairs and tell me what’s wrong with our printer.”
09.21.07
Backups
Looking through backups can be a dangerous (though sometimes enlightening) experience. I found the following text file today…apparently at some point I took it upon myself to define some words and phrases that I commonly use, in the way that I actually mean them, not what other people interpret them as. This is at least a couple years old, though most of the definitions remain more or less accurate. I’ve polished and edited it slightly to make it suitable for posting. I’d forgotten writing it so I found it slightly amusing. Also I seem to have been unable to decide if I wanted to write in the first or third person. Enjoy.
—–
deal: Verb. able to cope with. Often interpreted as meaning barely tolerable by mere mortals–to a Matt, this generally means he is perfectly happy with the situation.
Disgusting: Often “very gross”, i.e. “that is so disgusting even I didn’t think of it”. Also used as an adverb in a most superlative sense, i.e. “he is disgustingly [i.e. very very very] good at Ultimate Frisbee”
Hate: Used very loosely. Unmodified, it is used to indicate general dislike for a person, place, object, or way of thinking. Greater degrees of dislike are indicated by the modifiers of the word.
phrases:
“wow, your life sucks!”: I feel bad for you. I wish I could do something to help.
“I don’t like you anymore”: I will pretend to be offended by your remark for the next 2 seconds.
“Go away”: Go away for two seconds, then please come back, or else I’ll be lonely.
“Go away!” (grouchy voice): Leave me alone or I’ll bite your head off, or start crying. Or both.
Leave me alone! (grouchy voice): See “Go away! (grouchy voice)”
“I’m hungry” : I’m hungry. Feed me or I’ll keep whining about how hungry I am.
“I’m not hungry”: I’m not hungry enough to eat that particular food yet
“that’s stupid”: “I don’t understand that.” Sometimes stupid may be modified by other words–in such a form, it generally indicates distaste for something. The degree of the modifiers generally indicates the degree of distaste.
guttural noises:
“meh”: often “whatever”. Sometimes used to both acknowledge that the speaker has been heard, and to indicate that the Matt’s response to their comments is “whatever”. Also used by a Matt when he doesn’t have anything intelligent to say. Obviously, “meh” is a frequently heard noise.
“mrreeeh”: Sound of annoyance. In some cases may may mean “remove yourself from my presence.
“MMMMM!!! GGGRRRRHHHH!!!”: I just really hurt myself, but the presence of other people precludes me saying the words I usually say in this situation.
“hmph!”: Sound of annoyance or disgust. Sometimes used to indicate surprise.
08.08.07
Sailing Pics
One of the guys from the yacht club posted pictures of Andrew and I on the I-14 on Facebook:
http://washington.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2174217&l=2dfa0&id=10725360
Permalink Comments off
08.07.07
Sailing
I went sailing today. We (Andrew Cheung and I) took out the I-14. The I-14 is a fairly high performance dinghy (read: go fast). It’s a little trickier to sail than most of the other boats the yacht club has, so we capsized it a few times. At some point we capsized near the 520 bridge and someone driving by on the bridge decided to call the Seattle harbor patrol and report some poor drowning sailors.
So Andrew and I are halfway back to the Waterfront Activites Center when we see the Harbor patrol with lights on speeding in the opposite direction, where we’d been earlier. Then we start seeing aid cars and fire trucks show up at the Waterfront Activities Center. The Harbor Patrol boat finally came back up behind us and asked if we’d been “tipped over” by the bridge earlier. Anyway, as we got closer to the dock all the people on shore realized that we didn’t need rescuing and got back in their trucks and left.
So yes, one boat, two aid cars, and one firetruck. Other members we ribbing us because they’d only had a single aid car and a firetruck show up when they capsized near the bridge.
Anyway, so that was my adventure for the day. In other news, I’m still peeling from not wearing sunscreen weekend before last. Melanoma, here I come! Also, my submersible marine VHF radio appears to be truly submersible (I hear they aren’t always).
Permalink Comments off
07.08.07
Sabbath Mode
I discovered an article on engaging “Sabbath Mode” on an oven today while trying to find a user’s guide online. What is Sabbath Mode? Well:
Quote below from:
http://www.wordspy.com/words/Sabbathmode.asp
If you have a relatively new oven, you may not know that it has a built-in safety feature that automatically shuts off the oven after 12 hours or so. This is sensible, but it has been problematic for Jews keeping kosher on the Sabbath and on Jewish holidays because they’re forbidden to turn ovens (or any electrical appliances) on during that time. However, it is permissible to use electrical appliances that are already on. Hence the need for a Sabbath mode that keeps an oven on at a specified temperature for as long as it’s required. The cook can whip up a meal prior to the Sabbath or holiday and then leave it in the always-warm oven until it is ready to be eaten.
This innovation first appeared in KitchenAid ovens back in 1994.
07.03.07
Presidential Pardons
William Jefferson Clinton on Presidental pardons and commutations of sentences (pulled from Drudge):
President Clinton issued a number of pardons on his last day as President that created about as much controversy as the Libby pardon has. Clinton was only criticized by Republicans—Bush is getting it from both sides as some Republicans believe he should have given Libby a full pardon instead of merely commuting his prison sentence.
Permalink Comments off
06.07.07
Quotes
“Sir, you are clearly someone who is concerned about the environment.” —Greenpeace guy on the Ave.
“…and I have the right not to care. I shouldn’t have said that.” —Me
06.02.07
Change
I think that I need to change one of my sayings…one used to be “suffering is how we grow”. But I think that’s too narrow…change is how we grow. Change is always hard, often unpleasant, and sometimes painful. Suffering can be a symptom of change, so it’s true to say that suffering is how we grow, but it’s certainly not the only way we grow (I never considered it to be exclusive, even if the phrase didn’t suggest that, although I’d never given it too much thought). I have to say that “change is how we grow” isn’t nearly as dramatic. It will have to do, though, accuracy is more important than drama. 
Permalink Comments off
04.20.07
Article by Fred Thompson about gun laws in Virgina and the Virginia Tech campus:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTIwYzMyZmQ1YzQ1MDNmZTMyYzQ1Y2U3YTU4YzNmNGE=
UW has the same firearms policy—it’s not a crime, but you can be expelled or fired for carrying a firearm on campus.
03.28.07
Out of the Loop
I’m apparently way out of the loop. For the last year or so I haven’t been buying music off iTunes because there was no longer a way to get the DRM off the songs (this used to be because I didn’t have an ipod so I *had* to that–now I have an iPod so it’s just on principle). At least, I thought there was no longer a way, apparently there’s been a new way for a while. So in case you too are out of the loop, I give you QTFairUse 2.5.
Make sure you download the latest CFG file and put it in the program directory. Works with iTunes 7.1.1.
Permalink Comments off
03.18.07
Today
I was productive today. I…
- Went to church (no kidding).
- Went to Costco and put gas in my car and bought stuff I needed. I can actually deal with shopping at Costco 15 minutes after it opens.
- Raked some leaves in the backyard and declared jihad on some blackberry bushes. I also cleaned up some plant matter in front of the house.
- Upgraded the software that runs this blog.
- Did Laundry.
I’m very pleased with myself. Now I’m tired so I will be going to bed.
Permalink Comments off
Global Warming and Sissy Men
From Drudge, on global warming and emasculation:
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272612158.shtml
03.04.07
Quotes
There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any asssertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer
In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer
No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer
02.27.07
War on Junk Mail
Number to opt-out of the pre-screened credit/insurance offer lists the credit bureaus keep (works for all three):
1-888-567-8688 (888-5OPTOUT)
02.16.07
Someone call Wikipedia
Below is a great quote from a lecture by Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology in January ’03 (thanks to Matt Jones for leaving a link lying around his blog). If you’ve spent any time on Wikipedia reading the “talk” pages or the guidelines for posting articles you run into this “consensus” stuff a lot. It can get silly…although I don’t really know of a better way to do it. In any case, this is something to keep in mind when reading Wikipedia, or anything really.
This is also interesting because I’m currently taking a class (History 312) that covers the scientific revolution–we’ve gone from ~1500 and are just now getting to the mid-1700s when people were actually starting to do science as we know it today. There have been some interesting ideas that had consensus (they were still teaching on the four basic elements, earth , fire, air, and water in Universities up through about 1750). And who wants to talk about phlogiston anymore? That was a step in the right direction at least. Anyway, here’s the quote:
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
January 17, 2003
02.13.07
TYCHO sucks
So TYCHO is the online system the University of Washington uses for homework assignments and to track exam grades, among other things (the system was a “gift” from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). Undergrads hate it with a holy passion.
I just got out of meeting with the person who currently administers the TYCHO system. She inputs grades, fixes problems, etc. That thing is ten times worse on the administrative side…it’s just awful. I can’t express how ridiculous and time-consuming that system is. Whoever wrote it should be shot. My head started to hurt just *watching* some of the administrative tasks.
Yeah…wow.
02.12.07
This is getting out of hand…
Linked to on Drudge:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/10/nbouquet10.xml
It’s about contributing to global warming by buying flowers on Valentine’s Day…Honestly, does *everything* have to be about global warming now?
01.16.07
being green…
I think the compact fluorescents i installed in my room are hurting my eyes…I’ll give it a few more days.