Well, when we moved in to the new house, we had hardwood floors put in. The poor Roomba got sent to the benches with nothing to clean.

Flash forward, we finally bought some area rugs for the living room and hallways. So, we decided to call the vacuum robot back into action. Unfortunately, when Annette tried to get the little guy to go, he refused at first. Then on another attempt he started acting a little paranoid and schizophrenic.

These rugs interesting mix of colors and patterns including a big black spiral. Well, it turns out that Roombas don't like dark rugs. It screws with their edge detection sensors that keep it from driving off a cliff. Since we don't have any cliffs, I decided to look into hacking it. Two seconds on Google, and I was reading about others who had the same problem and the solution.

To trick your Roomba into working on dark carpets and rugs, just apply clear packing tape over the four sensor wells in the front of the unit.

It really was just that easy. Our Roomba is one of the older, cheaper models but it seems like the current nicer models have the same issue as well. I wonder if the folks at iRobot are working on a more elegant solution for future models?

Realistic Inventory Space & Mass
I hate the idea of carrying around 20 swords, 15 shields and 5 cracked helms that I looted from that Orc camp over yonder. There's no way I should be able to carry all that, and unless my character runs Ye Olde Crappy Weapons Shoppe there should be no real reason to pick up every single item I come across. Of course, in pretty much MMO ever, you need to do this because selling that stack of 'grey' loot to the vendor is how you make money.

Realistic Loot Tables
Speaking of loot: I really hate killing some wolf and looting a wolf spleen, a silver ring, a battle axe and 30 copper pieces. That's just lame. Especially when I was probably sent to get a wolf tail or 10 paws or something else he should have but doesn't. Oh, and how come that Elf had a really cool dagger right up until I killed him. He was stabbing me with it. Where'd it go? Oh, it broke you say? Really? 20 times in a row? Stop it already.

No Vendor Trash
Oh, I'm not done with loot yet. The concept of "vendor trash" needs to go away. Carrying 15 Owlbear giblets, three broken shields and a zombie's ear back to town because the vendor will, for some inexplicable reason, give me money for them is just silly. Plus I don't even want to know how bad my pack smells after that.

Mounts & Vehicles That Don't Fit In My Pocket
The above few griping points give immersion a real beating. The horse or landspeeder that I can reduce to an icon and have it take up only one slot in my backpack? Yeah, that just beats the living hell out of it. No level suspension of disbelief beyond closing my eyes and going "lalala" is going to allow me to pull a Kodo out of my pack without grimacing.

No Arbitrary Level Restrictions
You can't get a mount in World of Warcraft till you're level 40. Forty. Man, I got my first car when I was 17 and, let me tell you, IRL that's not even out of the freakin' tutorial yet. Oh no, you can't put on that helmet because you're only level 29 and you need to be level 30. Really? What's my head going to be like in one level? Oh sure, you can carry this level 50 axe in your pack! Just don't swing it at anything. Come here, I'm going to head-butt you with my level 29 head.

Ranged vs Melee
The reason you don't bring a knife to a gunfight is that the guy with the gun is going to shoot you from across the street. Then maybe come over and take your knife so he can sell it. There's a reason we invented ranged combat: it's more effective. Oh, and the only melee weapon that a game like Star Wars should have is the vaunted lightsaber and anybody who tries to go hand to hand against a lightsaber, loses 1d6 appendages. Yes, 1d6.

There's more, of course, but I have to go out to the parking lot, pull my car out of my pocket and head home... too bad my hearthstone is on cooldown. >.<

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.)

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.

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.

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!