On one hand, I lost some family members that meant a lot to me. On the other, we bought our first house and are loving it still.
On one hand, the list of things to fix or improve on the house is immense. On the other hand, we have a fucking HOUSE! (It's a big deal, ok?)
On one hand, stress levels at work are higher than they have ever been. On the other, I still have a job and am earning decent money.
On one hand, 2009 has been a bad year for writing. (Seriously, there have been 3 or 4 aborted writing attempts, and about 8 or 10 aborted blog posts.) On the other hand, I'm starting to figure out how to better balance my time and carve out niches for stuff.
On one hand, my lungs are still bothering me and I'm tired of it. On the other, I'm still alive and kickin'. (No, really... try me. Just get in kickin' range.)
So, Father Time, I'm willing to call 2009 a draw if you are. We can start again tomorrow, winner take all! Er, wait. Wait. Not winner take all. How about more of a Gentleman's wager? Or, just play for funsies?
Oh well, either way. Bring it, 2010.
(But please be gentle.)
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If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I highly recommend the app AutoStitch for creating some pretty impressive panoramics. It does an amazing job with just 2 or 3 photos, and is still impressive when you point it at about a dozen. That's how I created the above shot of my cube.
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r3v as computed by wolfram|alphaThey call Wolfram|Alpha a computational knowledge engine. It's important to note that it is not a search engine. It has it's own massive database full of, well, data and is very good at computing, comparing and presenting it. If you know how to ask.
The FAQ says, "Eventually you should be able to ask it about essentially any kind of systematic factual knowledge." Fascinating. (No, seriously. I got a Spock eyebrow thing going on here.) The potential for this is the stuff of SciFi. People like to joke about Google becoming Skynet, but Wolfram|Alpha is sort of like the next rung on the ladder leading to Singularity. Don't panic though, we're still quite a ways away. Probably.
So, it's interesting, but is it useful? The more you play with it, the more you understand what you can do with it. Whether or not you have any application for what you can do with it is another story. I can see it being of immense value for students and researchers. Between Google, Wikipedia and Wolfram|Alpha I have to wonder if textbook publishers are starting to really get worried about the web. Beyond that though? I can't see the need to visit it very often.
It is, however, currently a bit of a time suck since I continue to geek out on what it does and doesn't know, and how it compares things.
I asked it about my name, Chris, and it told me that it was the 350th most popular name in the US in 2007. Realizing that was woefully inaccurate, I asked it about Christopher and it told me that was 6th. Then, out of curiousity, I ask about both names and it gave me a nice comparison, including the History for US births with each of those names:
Clearly I need to start thinning the Chris[topher] herd. There's way too many of us.
Why GURPS is awesome.
I asked "apple dell sony microsoft palm rim market cap" and it gave me all the relevant numbers, even catching that RIM stands for Research in Motion. I asked it about "3 dice" and it drew me a lovely little bell curve. (It apparently only knows about six-sided dice though. Sorry D&D faithful.) I asked it about the day I was born and it told me there were "no known major notable events," which is a data point my mother is sure to dispute. I did, however learn that there was a waning crescent moon which was 41.52% illuminated.
I also have to admit to spending a bit of time playing with the what it knows about Astronomical bodies and their distances and figuring out how long it would get places with the Enterprise at warp 9.6. (No, W|A doesn't know warp, so you have to translate warp to factors of c for yourself.)
Speaking of family (no, I did... I mentioned my mom in the paragraph before last, pay attention), I'd like to point out that Wolfram|Alpha even understands the weird language of genealogy. Go ahead and ask it what a second cousin once removed is and it will draw you a picture.
Ok, I'm impressed.
]]>So, I let other people handle the debunking of the Moon Hoax conspiracies. I'll handle the calling them idiots part.
The other people that are rapidly reaching the level of hate that I had once reserved solely for the Moon Hoax morons, are the Anti-Vaxxers. (They're about on par with Scientologists now.) I've always had disdain for them, but through their massive effort to (what's it called... oh yeah) KILL PEOPLE, I have come to hate them.
Let's be clear on this right here and now: Anti-Vaxxers are trying to kill babies and I think it's ok to be pissed about something like that. My more gentle readers may wish to stop here as the language is going to get a little rough and I have no intention of playing nice.
Still with me?
Jenny McCarthy is best known for two things: No, not those. I mean: being a playmate and being a stupid MTV celebrity. Now, I'm not going to take any shots at her for being a playmate, since, I happen to be pro-naked-women. I do, however, want to clarify that that particular line on one's resume only qualifies them to comment on getting naked and it's related subtopics. Nobody should be listening to her when it comes to medical advice. She's a fucking moron. She thought her baby was magic before figuring out he had autism. No shit. Magic.
A brief pause in this rant for some empathy: I feel bad for her having to struggle with having autistic child. I do. That's fucking rough. Ok. Empathy time over, now back to the topic again, what was it? Oh yeah, Jenny McCarthy is trying to kill babies. She's also ok with your kid getting Polio, by the way. In case you didn't go read that link, allow me to pull out the quote to which I am referring:
I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.
It's NOT polio vs autism, you vacuous twat, and it never has been.
The vaccines we have are safe. It's you that has the body count, Ms. McCarthy.
Recently, the Huffington Post has been creeping up higher and higher on my shit list. During the dark days of the G.W. presidency, the HuffPo, as the kids call it, was often an entertaining read. Their liberal bias was obvious, but since we were on the same side then, I just kind of treated them as the liberal Fox News of the web. However, it has become clear that the Huffington Post has also become a bastion of anti-Science, new-age bullshit. They let the likes of Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy spew their dangerous anti-vaccination message and anybody who's enabling that is part of a very serious problem. (A public health problem, no less.)
This line of thought brings me to Oprah. For quite a while she's been lauding Jenny McCarthy (and Holly Robinson Peete, and other moms) for fighting against vaccines based on their "mommy instinct" that the MMR vaccine causes autism. For the record, the term "mommy instinct" should probably be called something along the lines of "desperate self-delusion" or "grasping at straws". The fact that you popped out this kid doesn't bestow upon you any special medical knowledge.
Oprah's company, Harpo (get it? get it?) Productions, has signed a deal with Jenny McCarthy to give her a show. Great. Just fucking great. As if the dangerous windbag needs another outlet, much less a nationally syndicated one.
So, I'm adding Oprah to my list of people who are trying to bring back measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough, polio and other diseases that we've beaten. Say, did you ever hear her motto? "Live your best life," she says. That's pretty fucking funny. Enjoy your rubella-induced blindness and your polio crutches! Gee, thanks, Oprah!
You might think I am being a sensationalist or that I'm overreacting when I say that Anti-Vaxxers are trying to kill babies, but that doesn't make it untrue. Just because that's not your intent, doesn't mean that's not what you're doing. Wake the fuck up.
The Jenny McCarthy body count site reports 188836 preventable illnesses and 163 preventable deaths as of this post. Great work, Jenny. Great work.
]]>For more info on what Free Comic Book Day is all about, check out freecomicbookday.com.
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Recently, we adopted a rescue cat, who goes by the name of Sargent [sic]. That's not how you spell the word, generally, but some folks do spell their name that way, so we didn't change it. It's irrelevant anyways, since we just call her Sarge.
It took her some time to get used to us and the new house. She was a feral kitten when she was plucked off the mean streets of San Jose, after all. She spent nearly a year in her foster home before we rescued her.
She's a brown tabby, just over a year old, and recently she had her first trip to the vet. She cried the whole way there, but on the way home she was a little trooper. Maybe because she realized we weren't giving her back? Who knows. ;)
It's good to have a new furry in the house. She's not a replacement for Boo, but will be a fine member of the family in her own right. At least until the dog comes along in a few months. Then she'll probably be hiding under the bed again for a couple of weeks.
]]>Maybe I'll even be able to write some actual posts too!
]]>Doh. He's right though. I've been meaning to write a lot more this year. 2008 was the scarcest year for blog entries in a while. I blame this on a few things: Twitter and Life. When things are busy, it's much easier to microblog. Of course, that's no excuse for someone who'd supposedly rather be writing than doing most other things.
So, I planned to write more in 2009. I even had plans for a second blog, of sorts. Talk about over ambitious. I haven't tossed either of those plans, but they definitely fell by the wayside for a bit. Same problems as last year, namely that life has been super busy.
Oh yeah, and we turned the "busy" dial up to 11 when we started house hunting in December. In January, several houses and offers later, we found our new home. In February, we settled on a price. In March, we closed escrow.
Ever since, we've been rushing to get it ready to live in. Foundation work, drywall work, electrician work, new floors, paint... the whole thing. Some pics of the process are up on Flickr. I'll upload more as the work progresses.
We move next week.
I hope.
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Boo, our beloved (and often annoying) cat, died in the wee hours of Xmas morning. Annette found him and I awoke to her reaction. I immediately knew what it was without asking. I was also immediately somewhat relieved that Liam had spent the night at his Nana's house. A couple years ago, Boo had a heart attack. We spent a lot of money and energy to save his life then. It was a sum of money that I won't go into here, but to say it was a lot and it was worth it. He had to be given heart meds twice a day, which became a routine neither he, nor we, seemed to mind because we were able to restore him to a good quality of life.
Recently, he lost his appetite, and eventually we couldn't coax him to eat at all. We took him into the vet, where they suspected it was his liver. Tests later confirmed that to be the problem. It wasn't the first time he'd had a problem with his liver. We took him home and began a new regime of pills and antibiotics. We had to start force-feeding him. (In case you've never force-fed a cat, just let me tell you right now that it's not as fun as it sounds. Even if you are good at it, some of the food isn't going down the gullet. Some of it is coming your way, and nobody wants to smell like cat food all day.) I even learned how to administer fluids. IV bag, with a needle going under the skin just between the front shoulder blades. Fun stuff.
Boo looked like he was bouncing back to a small degree. His appetite had not returned, and so neither had his strength, but, he seemed much more alert. Our vet assured us that he was in no pain, and that was very important to me.
So, I take some comfort in the thought that he died peacefully, probably just going to sleep and never waking up.
I will point out, however, that only Boo would choose to kick the proverbial bucket on Christmas Day when everything is closed. We'll have to deal with that tomorrow. Anyways...
You will be missed, Boo.
You were a damned fine cat.
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