… for making me burn another chunk of my company’s bandwidth before I went home.
Oh, mama …
Thanks, Julia …
… for making me burn another chunk of my company’s bandwidth before I went home. Oh, mama ……
Month: September 2002
Where’dja get those peepers?
Using tiny cameras in a public place to peek up women’s skirts may be “disgusting and reprehensible,” but, so far as voyeurism laws go, evidently it’s not illegal….
Using tiny cameras in a public place to peek up women’s skirts may be “disgusting and reprehensible,” but, so far as voyeurism laws go, evidently it’s not illegal.
DLL of Judgment
Ian has a hitherto-unrecorded conversation regarding drawing a new Pattern in Zelazny’s original Amber series: Dworkin: Okay, Obie, if you listen to only one thing your father says, listen to…
Ian has a hitherto-unrecorded conversation regarding drawing a new Pattern in Zelazny’s original Amber series:
Dworkin: Okay, Obie, if you listen to only one thing your father says, listen to this. If you ever have to reinstall the Pattern, make sure you uninstall the old Pattern first.
Oberon: You can’t just install the new one over the old one?
Dworkin: No. I tried that with the screwed up installs I did before I got this one. It gets really messed up. Don’t believe that uninstall thing in the Jewel, either. All it does is remove the icons.
It gets better.
(Apologies to all of my readers who have no idea what this is about. On the other hand, you should be getting used to that here.)
Turkey Talk
The Turkey City Lexicon is a collection of useful terms generated by the Turkey City sf workshop. The terms refer to plot elements, styles, and other bits and pieces that…
The Turkey City Lexicon is a collection of useful terms generated by the Turkey City sf workshop. The terms refer to plot elements, styles, and other bits and pieces that appear in sf writing, usually presented in a cautionary fashion (i.e., “Don’t do this thing — it’s become a cliche example of bad writing”).
“Call a Rabbit a Smeerp”
A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish.)
Squid in the Mouth
The failure of an author to realize that his/her own weird assumptions and personal in-jokes are simply not shared by the world-at-large. Instead of applauding the wit or insight of the author’s remarks, the world-at-large will stare in vague shock and alarm at such a writer, as if he or she had a live squid in the mouth. (Attr. James P Blaylock)
Just-Like Fallacy
SF story which thinly adapts the trappings of a standard pulp adventure setting. The spaceship is “just like” an Atlantic steamer, down to the Scottish engineer in the hold. A colony planet is “just like” Arizona except for two moons in the sky. “Space Westerns” and futuristic hard-boiled detective stories have been especially common versions.
A useful read for someone wanting to write in any genre, says I.
(via BoingBoing)
Conventional thinking
Bismarck noted that, as with sausages, it is best that the average person does not know how laws are made. The point being, of course, that both manufactures tend to…
Bismarck noted that, as with sausages, it is best that the average person does not know how laws are made. The point being, of course, that both manufactures tend to be a matter of expedient, and sometimes dirty, combinations of whatever is at hand, for reasons and by means that are often far less noble or aesthetically pleasing than one would ideally wish.
So why would anyone in their right mind — let alone someone who actually is positive about their religion — get involved in ecclesiastical organization and legislation? Like, say, for example, going to a diocesan convention next weekend to discuss budgets, various resolutions, and lay the groundwork for electing the next Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado?
Pattern recognition
One of the illegitimate offspring of King Oberon. Her mother, wife to Prime Minister Orkuz of Begma, had an affair with Amber’s king during a diplomatic visit. Coral is…
One of the illegitimate offspring of King Oberon. Her mother, wife to Prime Minister Orkuz of Begma, had an affair with Amber’s king during a diplomatic visit. Coral is taller than her sister Nayda and the Prime Minister, slender with reddish brown hair. In The Blood of Amber by Roger Zelazny, Coral decides that instead of telling the Pattern where to send her, she would go ahead and let it decide to send her wherever it wanted to. Her curiosity unwittingly opened her up to becoming a pawn between the forces of Order and Chaos.
Which Amberite are you?
Yeah, that’s probably about right. Makes more sense than Oberon, which is the first thing that popped out.
(via Being Frank)
Searching glances
Amazing the searches that find me — or that people are searching — or both. “building an easel” – Which reminds me that we didn’t finish getting the chain on…
Amazing the searches that find me — or that people are searching — or both.
Interestingly enough, there was not one “how to build cabinets” search (a perennial favorite here), but there were a lot of searches on Motorola V.60 ringtones (which I’ve never gotten to work even with detailed instructions).
In keeping with the real world, most of my searches come from Google, with a most of the rest coming from Yahoo. Rarely does anything else come here, either because those engines have 99% of the market between them (at least until Yahoo drops Google as its underlying engine, which may come any day now), or because I don’t pay for placement.
Eenie-meenie-minie-moe …
So after careful forensic analysis and similar double-talkey hoo-hah, more “experts” have decided that Saddam Hussein has at least three doubles (and hasn’t actually been seen in public since 1998)….
So after careful forensic analysis and similar double-talkey hoo-hah, more “experts” have decided that Saddam Hussein has at least three doubles (and hasn’t actually been seen in public since 1998).
It’s been long rumored that Hussein uses doubles extensively, as part of the massive shell game he plays on a daily basis, never letting anyone know where the real Saddam is, lest a cruise missile (or disgruntled security agent or bodyguard) take him out.
So we already pretty well knew he had doubles. The real question is — do we have a good DNA sample of him, so that … well, should something untoward happen, we have some proof that it happened to him?
Actually, now that I think of it, hasn’t at least one of his sons defected? That might come in handy …
Endangered Species
A study by “experts” in Germany says that natural blond hair will be out of the gene pool in about 200 years. Blond hair, it seems, is a recessive, which…
A study by “experts” in Germany says that natural blond hair will be out of the gene pool in about 200 years.
Blond hair, it seems, is a recessive, which means it needs to be contributed by both parents to make it show up in a kid. And if it was ever a reproductive success (i.e., men or women preferred to mate with blondes), that advantage has been overwhelmed by the “bottle blonde” set.
Of course, some of us are, ahem, getting “blonder” as the years go by. A really pale, even platinum blond … {ducks}
(via Blogatelle)
Songs
Speaking of foreign accents, huzzah for the Brits. We have a couple of British nursery rhyme books that we’ve picked up for Katherine (either in Britain before she was born…
Speaking of foreign accents, huzzah for the Brits. We have a couple of British nursery rhyme books that we’ve picked up for Katherine (either in Britain before she was born or since then here on remainders tables). They are a lot of fun, both because of some of the obscure rhymes they still carry (“See-Saw, Margery Daw”), and and because of others they have which are, these days, verboten in Right-Thinking Progressive Child-Friendly books.
For example, take such a horrible work as “Georgie Porgie”:
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry;
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
Imagine! A nursery rhyme that describes a wanton act of sexual harrassment, and which therefore encourages kids to do it! (Not that I ever read it as a child as meaning that I should emulate Georgie Porgie — just the opposite, in fact — but, obviously I was sucked in by its Partriachal Man-as-Enslaver of Womynkind attitude, otherwise I would understand that it is an Evil, Evil Thing.)
Shocking. Positively shocking. And don’t get me started on the rampant Speciesist Animal Cruelty melded with Inhuman Disdain of the Differently-Abled found in “Three Blind Mice.”
The British books also sometimes use odd verses. For example, in one the (only) verse they use for “Pop Goes the Weasel” is:
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.
Of course, rather than showing folks blowing their money at a tavern, they show a little car driving to London, an eagle flying overhead, and a weasel making what one must assume is a popping noise with his paw. But it’s still fun, and Katherine will have plenty of opportunity to learn the more “normal” first verse elsewhere.
Just part of our ongoing campaign to make sure our little one grows up at least a little eccentric.
Spam of the Day
Subject: Q. DOES YOUR FOREIGN ACCENT SIMPLY GET IN THE WAY? No. And even though my strange, exotic, foreign accent clearly labels me as a newcomer to these shores, YOU…
Subject: Q. DOES YOUR FOREIGN ACCENT SIMPLY GET IN THE WAY?
No. And even though my strange, exotic, foreign accent clearly labels me as a newcomer to these shores, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT.
Sunday morning dialog
Look Indy’s here. Innykitty! Yeah, Indy Kitty. Do you think he wants some kitty treats? Yeah! Okay, here you go. Give those to him. No, don’t throw them at him….
Look Indy’s here.
Innykitty!
Yeah, Indy Kitty. Do you think he wants some kitty treats?
Yeah!
Okay, here you go. Give those to him.
No, don’t throw them at him. Just give them to him. Yeah on the floor. Good girl. (Where’s my camera?)
Oh, here comes Mist Kitty. Here’s some more to — oh, okay, you given the rest to Mist, I’ll give these to Indy.
(Hmmm. Not enough.) Katherine, here, take some of these from my hand. No, not all of — Katherine — not — no, not all — Katherine!
Now look, they’re on the floor.
Here you go, Mist. Good kitty.
Katherine, I don’t think Indy saw you hide that one. He doesn’t know where it is. Just give it to him. Oh, he’s leaving. Okay, give it to Mist.
No, don’t taste it before you give it to Mist …
Good kitties. Good girl. (Where’s my coffee?)
Squirrels
You know how, if you’re lying there in bed, basking in the warmth under the covers, slowly drifting into the arms of Morpheus, your mind can start batting at all…
You know how, if you’re lying there in bed, basking in the warmth under the covers, slowly drifting into the arms of Morpheus, your mind can start batting at all the things you have to do? Slowly at first, like a single mosquito buzzing around your head, then building up in numbers?
Gotta pick up those sprinkler parts this morning after brunch. Huh. Maybe instead of using using that flexi pipe there, I should leave that head intact on that side of the fence, and simply do another split off the line to that side of the fence further on. That would add structural integrity, but it would reduce line pressure, but I could turn each one down, but how far down the line would the new one be, but that would cover that area behind the fence I’m worried about …
Gotta remember to send in that RSVP to the Harvest Auction. Any other bills need doing …?
Damn, didn’t get that prescription refilled yet. Maybe do that this morning after Kitten gets up. Hell, the breakfast table is a mess. Gotta clean that up today. But gotta work on the sprinklers, too. Wonder how long it will take for the PVC pipe fix I’m going to do to cure? Can’t test it until then, don’t want to fill in the hole, so I don’t want to start putting up planks …
Wait, before I put up planks, I should really trim off the top of the fence posts. Glad I found those cheap post caps. Worried about how things are creeping out of true by the retaining wall. Don’t want that to happen to the new fence. What do I do if this gate pulls out of true, too. Like the landscaping ideas Margie and I talked about yesterday. Damn, gotta figure out where to put the retaining wall stones by the driveway. Use that fill dirt from the auger holes. Will that be enough? How long will that take. Gotta borrow Doyce’s truck to get the stones. How costly will that be? Is it going to look okay? Margie’s right, we should convert those sprinklers to a drip system. That’s not going to be easy. Will they really handle being blown out each year? That’s going to be a mess …
Hey, we got those chains yesterday, so we can finish building Katherine’s easel. Before or after sprinklers? Hmmmm. Oh, damn, I remember the other day thinking about redoing my non-blog web pages, been going on two years since I did, oh, hell …
And gotta follow up with Rey about those character concepts. Gotta talk to Randy about that SAS thing. What’s going on next weekend? Oh, yeah, the convention. Huh, what’s going on the rest of this week? Oh, hell, boss-man coming into town …
And then you realize you’re wide awake even before the kid would have gotten you up?
Yeah, I hate that, too.
Puzzle pieces
In the course of putting in the fence, three sprinkler issues came up — and need to be fixed before we go beyond the post stage. First off, of course,…
In the course of putting in the fence, three sprinkler issues came up — and need to be fixed before we go beyond the post stage.
First off, of course, was the sprinkler feed line that we, er, augered into (GLURSH). That needs to be patched, and the wiring that ran along it repaired.
Plus, two sprinkler heads need to be moved from one side of the to-be fence to the other. That’s going to leave some space behind the fence that’s covered only by the fringes of some of the sprinklers there, but the space out front is in more sun and needs more help.
I dealt with the second part (moving the sprinkler heads) first, digging trenches from where the heads are now to where they need to be. In one case, it was a simple two foot jog. In the other, I needed to change the actual coverage, since it’s near the corner of the fence. (In digging that one, I discovered that another of our post holes came within an inch of tearing up another sprinkler line. Yikes!)
Then it was a matter of digging into the bore hole where we struck water and … behold! A white plastic (PVC) pipe. Bigger than the black poly pipe used for all the normal sprinkler stuff, I realized that must be what the supply lines all are, which makes sense since they are always under pressure.
Now came the fun part. What pieces do I need?
You’d think that putting together sprinkler lines would be like … well, like connecting tinkertoy or something. Hah. In reality it’s a matter of combining different sizes of pipe (3/4″, 1/2″, riser 1/2″ which is actually 3/8″), plus different fixtures for each joint, male threaded riser joints, female threaded riser joints, flexible tubing, and, of course, the various arcs and heights of sprinkler heads. It’s like a puzzle where there may be multiple ways of putting it together, but you may not have all the pieces you actually need to do so — and, in some cases, some combinations of pieces (3/4″ male pipe insert right angle to 1/2″ female riser opening) may not actually be even manufatured.
Throw in the new, added dimension of the white plastic pipe, and it’s all hugely exciting. Heh.
So I wrote down a list of what I needed, and headed off for the local sprinkler parts store. It’s closer than Home Depot, and it has a better selection, and the staff is definitely more knowledgable. On the other hand, I always feel like an idiot when I go there, even though the staff is also quite friendly and helpful.
So that’s where I learned that there’s a difference between 1/2″ poly pipe and 1/2″ poly riser pipe (the stuff that’s actually 3/8″).
Picked up everything I needed, and headed home.
Except it never quite works that way. I got home and discovered that while I could rebuild one of the sprinkler lines ….
… I didn’t pick up the right size of collars for patching the white feeder pipe (though it turned out I did have the right size of pipe in the garage to create the patch piece with).
… and it turned out that, dagnabbit, I was missing the one set of pieces I’d taken for granted — the little metal crimping sleeves that hold the PVC pipe to the joint fixtures.
So that’s tomorrow’s trip …
Perspective
As you read your headlines in the morning about the 50,000 (or was it 150,000?) folks who “marched against war” (or was it against Israel?) in London, recall that last…
As you read your headlines in the morning about the 50,000 (or was it 150,000?) folks who “marched against war” (or was it against Israel?) in London, recall that last weekend some 400,000 marched there against a ban on fox hunting.
(via Instapundit)
Latency
I’m told (and am observing) that it’s taking a while to get this page loaded. Apologies, and I’m not sure if it’s page-related, server-related, or a latency in one of…
I’m told (and am observing) that it’s taking a while to get this page loaded. Apologies, and I’m not sure if it’s page-related, server-related, or a latency in one of the things that gets loaded when this page does. I’ll keep an eye open and see if I can figure it out.
Firefly, Week 2
Observations (possibly with spoilers):…
Observations (possibly with spoilers):
And that’s saying something
Margie’s tastes are extremely eclectic when it comes to food. She’s willing to try anything once, and there’s little she won’t try a second or third time. So when she…
Margie’s tastes are extremely eclectic when it comes to food. She’s willing to try anything once, and there’s little she won’t try a second or third time.
So when she says, “I saw the most disgusting recipe ever this afternoon,” my ears prick up.
Spam a l’Orange
Take one (1) can of Spam.
Sprinkle Tang over it.
Cook in oven until the Tang melts to form an orange glaze.
Yup, that about says it all.
Actually, I don’t know that I agree with Margie’s assessment — there are plenty of dishes I find more disgusting. But few that are so … wrong. Or funny.
Arf wi’ ‘is ‘ead!
Glen Reynolds sums up (with additional words from a federal judge) my current opinion on the death penalty: I think that the anti-death-penalty crowd (like the anti-war crowd) made a…
Glen Reynolds sums up (with additional words from a federal judge) my current opinion on the death penalty:
I think that the anti-death-penalty crowd (like the anti-war crowd) made a serious mistake by lapsing into moral posturing on this issue and thus destroying its credibility. The notion that it’s per se immoral for the state to kill peple is absurd — or at least, proves too much, as killing people is the core function of nation-states, and always has been. Government power is based ultimately on violence; all else is superstructure.
The problem with the death penalty is that it’s just another big government program that doesn’t work. If death penalty opponents had been clearer on that point all along, they would have done better.
In other words, I don’t object to the state (us) using it’s power to protect itself from particularly heinous criminals ever committing such crimes again. I might even be willing to be argued in favor of it if it were a matter of “better one innocent be killed than ten guilty go free.” But when the numbers are looking like many, or even most folks on Death Row are there through errors, prosecutorial misconduct, or judicial incompetence, capital danger becomes more of a danger than those it seeks to punish.
Teases
We suffer at our house from a severe lack of broadband. DSL (via Qworst) is not available to the house. Cable modem service (via AT&T) is not available to the…
We suffer at our house from a severe lack of broadband.
DSL (via Qworst) is not available to the house.
Cable modem service (via AT&T) is not available to the house.
Broadcast broadband (via Sprint) is blocked by trees.
Satellite is, presumably, available, but the price is exhorbitant, and since we don’t live in the Middle of Nowhere, I choose not to go that route.
So today I get a mail ad from AT&T Broadband. With High-Speed Cable Internet Service, You’ll Love Using the Internet Again. Could it be?
I mean, after all, they know what addresses it’s available to. I know, because I can go to the web site, put in my address, and it gives me a thumbs up or (always, in the past) a thumbs down.
So they wouldn’t burn an extra Presorted Standard US Postage to send a notice to someone they know can’t use their service, right? I mean, they have my address, printed, right there, right? They wouldn’t tease me like that, right?
Go to the web site. Key in my address.
Bastards.