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Stuff + nonsense. Updated daily. So far. Pretty much. Overwrought by Scott Knaster.
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Saturday, February 22, 2003
Earthquake
A 5.4 mag quake woke Barbara at 4:19 this morning. I slept right through it. I hate when that happens. If there's gonna be an earthquake, I insist on feeling it.
Friday, February 21, 2003
Redistribution of wealth
Dave Winer writes about getting ready to move by disposing of junk in his house -- four dumpsters worth. On the first day of cleaning, he already found the first issue of PC Magazine. I bet other geeks in the valley with spare time would love to come by and help go through his stuff and look for gems. This is like a garage sale, which is nature's way of spreading semi-interesting junk from one house to another.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Call some place paradise
Yesterday we drove my wife's new non-monstrous SUV to Anaheim. It did a great job. We experienced some unsettled California winter weather. The first stretch, to approximately Kettleman City, was drizzly and gloomy. Then, the skies cleared and we ran into a tremendous dust storm. Huge brown clouds moved across the horizon. I played Frogger with dozens of tumbleweeds as they bounded across Interstate 5. Finally, part way over the Grapevine, Southern California magic took over and we had clear, sunny skies all the way to the Orange Curtain. We're privileged to live in California.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
We're going to Disneyland!
Tomorrow, we're at the Happiest Place on Earth. I'll try to stay somewhat connected to the blogosphere and sneak time to provide some vaguely interesting posts.
Off the air
I can't load www.blogger.com. I can ping it, but it won't load or curl. Therefore, I can't blog from my WinXP box, which is all I'll have as I'm traveling for the next five days. So, I might be silent here until Sunday.
Any ideas?
Live or jive?
You decide.
Blame Barry
Barry Bonds, who had one of the finest World Series in history, says he's to blame for the Giants losing the series to Anaheim. Bonds relates the following conversation he had with his wife Liz:Liz: You got your wish.
Barry: What are you talking about?
Liz: You asked God your whole life to be in the World Series. You got your wish.
Barry: You're right. I did. Why didn't I wish to win? That was really dumb. I'm going to be a lot more careful about what I wish for from now on.
Here's the correct Keith Stattenfield link. I'm posting through a straw right now. No fixing of typos, no RSS titles. Sigh.
Living in the past Last night Keith Stattenfield and I started waxing nostalgic about thing that used to exist at and around Apple in Cupertino. Such as:The FourPhase building (killed by '89 quake)Hey, old timers, can you think of more? Send mail.
Bob's Big Boy (now Mandarin Gourmet)
Computer Literacy
Peppermill (demolished last year)
Mr. Mariani's orchard (before my time, even)
Cali Bros. grain silo (torn down in '86 or so)
The wrought iron gate with an Apple logo from De Anza 2 (I hope somebody saved that)
Is this thing on? www.blogger.com has been 404ing since last night, so I'm checking to see if I can post via NetNewsWire.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Geek humor
This is really funny. (If you never use Windows IE, you might not get the joke.) The link comes from the fine team that works every day to bring you Nobody Knows Anything.
Orange farmer
We have a couple of prolific orange trees in the yard. When you grow up in Colorado, that's like paradise. Last Sunday we sent our daughter Devi out to harvest oranges from the tree. Of course, she made a whole production out of it. She put on boots, gloves, and goggles. She filled a bucket with water to wash the oranges, and used a towel to dry them. After she had picked a couple dozen, she made signs that said "Come see the Orange's show!" and invited us out. She pretended she was running one of those farms where kids come to visit to see how it works. She let my wife and I pick an orange, wash it and dry it, and then told us "good job!"
Starving and misguided
Joan Ryan's column is about the shocking phenomenon of web sites that help girls and women maintain their anorexia. The quotes from the sites are unbelievable, like this one:hey our stats are almost identical now (i'm 5'5' and nearing 68lbs last i checked) and we have around the same goal weights/dates (mine is to be 40-45lbs by my wedding in may/june)The column written around it is mediocre. At first it seems to be heading toward a classic "the Internet is evil" condemnation, but then it backs off and just kind of peters out. But really, it's hard to comment on insanity like this. This is the second story about "pro-ana" web sites I've seen in the past week, and I heard another on the radio. Cynical question: why is all this interest stirring up right now?
Monday, February 17, 2003
Suspension of disbelief
The SF Chronicle has a story about the new Carquinez Bridge, the first suspension bridge to be built in the U.S. in 40 years. Did you ever see those cool old pictures of a partially-built Golden Gate Bridge? Here's what the Carquinez Bridge looks like now.
White house
Over the weekend there was a big blizzard on the east coast. When I lived in Colorado, I used to love snow. A fresh blanket of snow is a beautiful sight. It sounds cool too, because it absorbs sound and makes the world very quiet. I only hated snow when I had to go somewhere else. Then I had to deal with starting the car, cleaning off the snow, driving through snow and ice, and watching out for other drivers, all of whom were worse drivers than me (of course).
Weblogs as watchdogs
Ed Cone sums up how bloggers are helping keep track of the really stupid things being said by North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble.
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Flash Mind Reader part 2
Yesterday I wrote about how Flash Mind Reader works. I was a little fuzzy on why 9 is the magic number. Why, if you add a number's digits, then subtract that value from the number, is the result is a multiple of 9? Smart guy and old friend Dan Winkler stepped in to help me figure it out. Let's use 84 as an example, because '84 was such a great year. Flash Mind Reader commands us to add 8 + 4, then subtract that sum from the original number: 84 - 12 = 72. Another way to think about this is 84 - 4 - 8. We'll subtract the 4 first, and then the 8. When we subtract the ones digit (4), we basically zero out the ones place and end up with a multiple of 10 every time (this time, it's 80). A multiple of ten means "ten of something" -- in this case, it's ten 8's. The tens place tells us what the "something" is. Now we subtract the digit from the tens place (the 8). So, we're starting with ten of something, and taking away one of the somethings, leaving 9 of something. That's why the result is always a multiple of 9 -- in other words, 9 of something. That's pretty cool. Here's an algebraic way of expressing the same thing. If the original number has digits xy, it can be represented as 10x + y. Summing its digits and subtracting the sum looks like this: 10x + y - x - y = 10x - x + y - y = 9x. Guess what, geeks and folks: there's more. Most humans on our planet use base 10, in which numbers have a ones place, a tens place, a hundreds place, and so on. Every place is worth 10 times the place to the right. But this add-the-digits-and-subtract-from-the-number business works in any base. The magic number is always one less than the base. If you do the trick on any octal (base 8) number, the result is a multiple of 7. If the number is base 257,764, the result is a multiple of 257,763 -- try it yourself if you don't believe me.
