Arr, the Kraken

Projects Arcturus and Aurae

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:39:37 -0800

I've got two projects that I'm far too excited about for what they actually are - so much so that I've given them semi-sinister sounding names because all good projects require names. And henchmen, but I'm still a little lacking on that front.

Project Arcturus is my scattershot random picture project - I'm going to scatter 100 disposable cameras around the city in neat little yellow boxes that say, "hey, congrats on being one of the less than 1% of folks even willing to pick up a box like this let alone look inside. Now comes the fun, you're part of a participatory art project. Take some pictures of you, your friends, your family, funny looking dogs, whatever, and mail them back to me in the envelope provided (don't worry, I'm covering postage) and together we'll make something cool. Look at this website for more info and updates". I think it'll be smashing and I hope that I'll get fewer than 5% pictures of people's junk (both literally and scatalogically). So Arcturus is progressing nicely with a source for cheap disposable cameras, cheap remailing envelopes and potentially cheap boxes to put them in (though I'll probably have to spray paint them yellow). Now the only problem is where to get 100 rolls of film developed somewhat cheaply. I looked into doing it myself at home and despite the opportunity to play with caustic chemicals it's just too expensive still.

Project Aurae is much less interesting but probably more useful overall - with the iPhone SDK now out I've been working on a scrabble dictionary application for it - with "find me a bingo with these letters" functionatly and everything. "But zack, what use is that application when your iPhone already has teh interwebs and there are free dictionaries online?" you say. Well, yes, that is a rather huge gaping hole in my plan and part of the reason this idea is unlikely to make me massively wealthy. Mostly it's because finding quick ways for a computer to find words that match your letters is just an interesting problem to me.

Lastly - you now have to think ever so slightly harder if you want to comment here. As Mikey rightly pointed out the russian mafia/spammers had sucessfully migrated to the new format and my anti-spam-fu is weak. However I read recently about reCaptcha and I like what they're doing. It's one of those "squiggly words" tests (captchas) except what these folks do is use it to help digitize old books for the library of congress or google or whomever. They give you two words, one of which they already know the answer to and the other their computers have had a hard time with. If you get the one right they assume the other is also good and - tada - you've helped digitize a book. Swanky no? If you get a particularly hard one (I got a giant black box one time) just click the little refresh button and they'll happily send you more words.

The poetry my mind composes just before falling asleep.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:02:24 -0800

Standing up high, towering, surveying the landscape around me. I enjoy standing above things, somehow solitary and unified with everything all at once, probably the reason I perch on rocks when climbing or stand on chairs for no reason. Straddling the gap, one foot on rotting canvas covering rusting chain, the other firmly planted on rough plastic rhino-hide, protective shell for the utility beast. Stare out for a while and take in the landscape as it were then turn and grab the sheet. Clear and razor sharp, old glass gently removed and transported to meet its final fate. Steady myself against the ridges and bumps of the bed and press out against the rope barrier I hurl the glass out into the abyss. It slices smoothly through the air before gradually coming to a stop and only then starting to descend. It falls with remarkable grace, far more slowly than expected, teasing out anticipation as only an inanimate object can do. Closer to the ground now, any second now - it's gone. No transition from one state to the next, just glass one moment and a cloud of blue the next. Beautiful really.

I wrote that last night just as my mind transitioned to sleep. Actually it wasn't quite that but this is what I could make from my scrawled notes. Note to self, work on penmanship.

Nature

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:31:20 -0800

Every now and again I get absolutely entranced by the little bits of nature that scurry and hop about my yard in the morning - usually to the detriment of my commute. While the squirrels are ever vigilant against Addie, she and the birds seem to have drawn up a tentative truce (even with the crows). We spent probably a good half hour this morning watching a little robin hop around gathering up bits of sodden twig for a nest presumably. It saw us and was initially scared but quickly realized we meant no harm and went about its business. It's possible I've started noticing this more since the last two movies and book I've read have had a lot to do with folks living in the wild but who knows. I like my little urban forest.

Also, the best thing about heart ache, waffles for dinner.

Unexpected weekend

Mon, 26 May 2008 20:39:08 -0800

I'm recently home from burying someone else's pet out in discovery park - that's just how strange this unplanned weekend has progressed.

With 2/3 of the folks I normally hang out with out of town this weekend (or so it felt like) I was a bit resigned to an uneventful memorial day, but the world would have none of that. Saturday I had agreed to let Abby use my kitchen to cook Justyn dinner. Then it was dinner for a few people, there had even been an eVite about it but I (as is my style) knew nothing of this. 10-12 people, no problem. I think all total we probably had about 30 show up, which isn't a terribly large party but it was surprising that my tiny little house managed to house that many people fairly comfortably. The Wii was played, motorcycle ogled, fajitas grilled and by pure happenstance (one of the guests older sisters went to my highschool in my class) we broke out the old high school year book and I was mercilessly mocked. It was great. Plus I finally met a few of the folks in some of Justyn's stories that I hadn't met before.

Sunday as an enjoyable day burning myself at the park and game night followed by insomnia which lead nicely into the email greeting me this morning - one of Allison's rats hadn't survived the 4 weeks she's gone in wales and Chavie wasn't entirely certain what to do. We decided on burial (as opposed to 4 more days in the freezer) so I went and found the makings of a little coconut shell coffin and prepared for the trip out to discovery park. If I ever suddenly need to bury a body again (one never knows) I think next time I'll wait until not the middle of the day on a somewhat sunny holiday because let me tell you, nothing is more suspicious than seeing someone walking around a park with a stuffed bag and a shovel and nothing is quite more surreal than digging a grave in a small copes of trees while little children giggle and run all around you. Please don't look over here.

Vegas the previous weekend was enjoyable too, especially the Cirque show Ka.

Dishonor gnome came traveling with us and managed to experience both the highs and lows of Vegas. Seen here getting some play and relaxing in the pool.

Then of course here losing it all on slots and laying dead or destitute in the gutter.

Taking that little gnomey punk with us was probably the best idea my manager has ever had. He may just have to become a regular traveling companion. He, or one of his plastic and thusly less breakable siblings.

A trip to the Bay area

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:32:33 -0800

I spent the last weekend at the MAKE magazine "Maker Faire" in san francisco and I have to say, I'm hooked. I tried everything from blacksmithing and welding to making felt finger puppets. I have no shame about the finger puppets either, they were cool. I got to hear one of the Mythbuster folks talk for a while (though it was crowded and there were ultimately more interesting things to do). Basically I got to do all but one of the things I really wanted to do. I didn't get to drive around in a motorized cup cake. They wouldn't let me, I did ask. And now, pictures with commentary!

Yep, that's a spherical robot. It turns out you really can make one of them. I got a chance to talk with one of the lead designers of the "orb swarm" robots about some of the trials of making something so outside of the norm. It turns out the propulsion system that Mikey and I designed was pretty much what they'd come up with as well - score one for amateur nerds!

I spent a little more time with the folks at The Crucible learning some very basic blacksmithing. Technically they weren't offering classes but I was apparently visibly interested enough that they threw me into the forge. Figure of speech there, I am not currently hideously burned. I have no idea what this guy was making other than a heavy pointy bit of metal but I like the flying flakes of metal in this shot. I made a hook. I'm immensely proud of it.

There were some interesting folks at the faire. I have no idea who this guy is (as in, what acting or artist troupe he's part of) but he was quite fond of showing pictures of the polar bear he'd shot with his steam powered rifle. He was interviewed by internet celebrities (that's Xeni from boingboing). There were quite a few interviews going on, only a few from "legitimate" sources. I really need to see about getting a press pass next year!

There were quite a few "girlscout" aged girls at the show which, I'll admit, surprised me a little. The young gal with the missing tooth absolutely loved "Finger puppets who wish to not die" and I was incredibly proud of the next batch of young nerds being raised when the little gal to the right exclaimed, "Mom, check out all of the new lego robot designs!" while browsing the book section.
Robots and steampunk were pretty much the order of the day for the faire.

There were robot dinosaurs that were oh so affectionate and tiny little robots that could never rest, never drop their burden lest they starve! That little guy was kind of tragic actually.

And of course steampunk hats on steampunk gals who eventually all congregated at the steampunk concert featuring - yep - steampunk punk. Abney Park were actually pretty good, and it turns out they're from here but sadly - and I'm quoting now - they could never get an audience to show up in seattle but they're hugely popular in california. That's a strike against you there pacific northwest, let's do better next time, okay?

Other than that, pretty much just fire and tools (both of which I love) and gals dressed up as mice inside a 15,000 pound recreation of the game "mousetrap". So, you know, good times.

Wider and less error prone

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:14:20 -0800

Huzzah for a working authoring and editing system! Sure it looks a little different and I haven't gotten things entirely moved over yet (and I'm sure there were some errors in the moving of the old stuff) but it's much much easier for me to manage now. PLUS, bonus, it's got handy image upload utilities so I can share the genius of the fred meyer product placement/marketing department:

I can't tell if it's a disgruntled employee or a legitimate effort to place something close to where someone might want to find it.

Soon I fly to the Make Faire and I'm excited to learn to spot weld and take a few thousand pictures. Then it may or may not be off to Orlando to learn all about visual studio (that one's for work), a quick jaunt home and finally I return to Vegas. It's been far too long.

Oh yes, comments are now wide open - just as they were before - though if the amount of annoying spam continues I may eventually try the whole "account" thing, thoughts?

The hard things to write about

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:16:28 -0800

Some of the things that happen in my life I've tended to avoid writing about - or at least delay writing about - because I just don't quite know how to treat the subject matter. My normal style of writing is either dry wry wit or as accurate a record of traveling as possible.. and that's about it. One or the other, I seem to have a hard time putting anything into any other sort of form. So when I've got something that it's hard or in poor taste to be witty about and I'm not out traveling I just sort of flounder and don't know what to do.. and the blog sort of dies while I sort that out or something more in keeping with my style happens. Now I've been challenged to just write about it anyway.

5 days ago a friend of mine tried to kill himself. Thankfully unsuccessful, it's not really clear how serious he was in his endeavor. He's not one of my very closest friends but close enough, and closer to friends who I'm closer to so that it affected me a fair bit. Over at the Etrurian house during game night there was a furious pounding on the door - it was assumed someone was trying to get us to shut up (we can be somewhat noisy at times) but instead it was someone looking for a key to get into this fellow's apartment to try and find out what he'd taken. The rest of the evening can be summarized as breaking into the house, finding six empty pill bottles (thinking "oh man, what have you done"), helping the paramedics, talking with the police and holding a crying friend for a half hour or so.

As a practical matter I'm glad I've inherited my pop's sense of "right, let's get done what needs to be done" mentality during crisises - making sure at least one person around could do what, well, needed to be done, but it also means I don't really get to process a lot of whats happening the moment it's happening and I'm left to rehash it later when my brain takes it back down a notch. In this particular case it was the next day at work during a meeting at around 2 in the afternoon - no feeling really concrete enough to place a nice label on, just sort of a depressed sense of "wow". Some of my general thoughts...

I've felt low before, after a breakup, whatever, but I don't think my mind has ever gone to that little potentiality so the fact that someone's would is a pretty foreign concept to me. Maybe it was the pills (combined with alcohol) that lead to that - frightening since I take one of them as well, maybe something to talk about with the doc? What's it going to be like when he gets home from the hospital, is this something that will ever be talked about? Even if it is, since I'm of distant friendship will I get to know about it?

Like I said, hard to focus on the meeting.

So there you have it, that explains the last week of silence - the proceeding three probably from struggling with an escaping dog and what that may entail in terms of fixing the problem. Oddly enough this all just motivates me more to find someplace to travel to since I really miss writing and wanting something a little more positive to write about. That or learn to write in a third style. Patrick, pointers?

For Science!

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:27:59 -0800

A friend of mine (michael) at work has a nerf dart gun - well actually we all have several - but he went and modified one particular dart to have the business end of a thumb tack in the suction cup area. He'd brandished it about and said he now possessed the ultimate power in the universe. I have to admit, it was a good idea.

I went into another friend's (mass) office today and found michael sitting there, contemplating a mountain dew can. I asked what was up, he said that they'd been weapon testing the dart. So far it had destroyed a little paper cube and put a few holes in the wall but that they weren't quite sure if it had the strength to puncture skin or aluminum (the dew can).

"Give me that!" I say and grab it from michael's hands. He struggles a bit and emplores "no" but I wrench it free and fire into the can. Whack! A clean hit and this jet stream of mountain dew shoots straight out of the can. Success!

It is, of course, only at this point that I realize the stream of mountain dew is firing - laser like - directly into my pants, right on the crotch. So now I sit here, mountain dew "piss" soaked pants and shirt tails slowly staining while mass cleans up his office desk, being generally lauded all around for having the "testicular fortitude" to embark on experiments no one else considered (rightly) a wise course of action.

I'm sure I also did some work today but it's sort of hard to focus on that right now.

Enigma

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:48:14 -0800

Justyn has requested that we bring the full force of this brain trust to bare on a personalized license plate that he was unable to decipher. While it's highly likely that this does in fact mean something I like to think this might be the first person to employ my plan to get a custom plate with gibberish on it. The thought of people wracking their brains to try and find meaning in 5 Qs and a Z amuses me. But I digress.

The plate in question reads: R N G E K Y O
The plate frame says: "Trauma Team"

Justyn and Erin came up with a couple of possible ideas, the most plausible of which is "Registered Nurse, Geek, Yo!". I keep seeing "Range, Kentucky, Oh" which makes a little less sense but the pattern recognition portion of my brain seems to be stuck on that.

Thoughts?

Morbid Curiosity

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:29:06 -0800

I was at a red light tonight on the drive home and was sitting next to an extra jacked up Hummer H2 and thought to myself: "I wonder how much it costs to fuel that thing?" Then I got a little morbid. I wondered what the real cost of it was, how many people had died to fuel that hummer. I'm a liberal commie bastard so of course I'm talking about the Iraq war. I'm also a nerd so let's do some math.

According to the US Department of Energy the united states imported approximately 2 billion barrels of oil from all OPEC nations in the year 2006 (the most recent data set). But not all of that gets turned into gasoline, looking again at the DOE we can find that of the about 7.55 billion barrels of oil consumed by the united states in 2006 approximately 3.37 billion barrels of gasoline were produced so that 2 billion barrels from OPEC translates to roughly 892 million barrels of gas. At 42 US standard gallons per barrel that's 37.5 billion gallons of gas per year that we use as a nation.

The H2 is not the most efficient of vehicles. EPA estimates for the 2006 model year were 10 MPG city and 15 MPG highway. Most consumers tend to get pretty close to the city rating all of the time (our traffic is non ideal) and given that this was a raised H2 I'm going to go ahead and peg its fuel economy at 10 miles per gallon. The AAA says that, on average, Americans drive 15,000 miles per year, which is pretty consistent with how many miles I have on my car so I'd believe it. Mr H2 therefore consumes about 1000 gallons per year. My car, a 2006 Mazda 3, is rated at 25/31 and I tend to get pretty close to the 25 MPG rating costing me roughly 600 gallons per year. The CAFE standard for fleet fuel economy is 27.5 MPG so I'm running pretty close to what the "average" available fuel economy for purchase is. Therefore by driving a hummer instead of an "average" car we have to consume 400 gallons per year that we wouldn't otherwise have to or more precisely 0.000001066% of all gasoline consumed by Americans in the year 2006.

According to the admittedly biased sounding Iraq Body Count website there were an average of 63.5 deaths per day in Iraq in 2006 (admittedly the most violent year there on record), which works out to a nice even 23000 deaths per year. In terms of corpses we've got a full 0.02453% of a body spent for that H2 per year.

0.02453% of a body is a little hard to conceptualize though, still fairly abstract. Assuming the average person who died there weighed roughly 155 pounds - not a bad assumption since Wikipedia puts the average male weight at around 170 and female at 140, we'll just have to average it out but it's still within the realm of accuracy. So 0.02453% of a 155 pound (70.5 Kg) person gives you 0.038 pounds, roughly 17 grams. Now we're getting somewhere.

17 grams of person per year of driving a hummer. 17 grams. Let's break out the food scale. It's a little hard to weigh individual portions of your body but you can cut pretty close approximations from a chunk of chicken. 17 grams is conveniently a roughly pinky sized chunk of chicken.

A pinky per year of driving a hummer. I'm picturing the reaction of getting that in the mail.

I know, I know, it's all shock value. And really, a god fearing red blooded American hummer driver really only cares about American deaths. And with a paltry 704 soldiers killed during 2006 (not an exceptionally high number) those 400 gallons only break down to 0.00075% of a solider, roughly 0.00135 pounds or just over half a gram of corpse per year on your conscience hummer driver.

Half a gram. That's not even measurable in body parts.

Threshold of laziness

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:15:47 -0800

This has been rolling around in my mind for about a week, but I appear to have discovered the Threshold of Laziness - or at least my threshold. The Threshold (yes, capital T) is the point at which my general desire to not do unpleasant thinks matches exactly the annoyance something is causing me. It's rakes in a car.

I helped Justyn do a bit of maintenance on his house and brought over a few yard implements (a rake and two shovels). By the time I got back to my house it had started to rain bitterly and it was a LONG 110 feet back to the shed in the back yard to put the rakes away so I left them in my car. Over the course of the next week and a half the weather oscillated between rain and snow. And every day over that week and a half I would grind my teeth at the incessant rattling of the rakes as I drove to and from work thinking, "man, I really need to put these things away". Rattling... Rain... it was in perfect balance.

I am pleased by this discovery. I'm thinking "Birkenbuel's law of apathy" has a nice ring to it.

Indignance

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:17:55 -0800

It's probably some sort of sin, or an example of some ridiculously long german psychiatric word, the level of enjoyment I get when someone who is falsely indignant gets the wind knocked out of their angry little sails.

I was hit on my way to work today, nothing serious. I'm in the second to right lane turning right (a legal move), she was in the right most lane and elected to not turn so much. A squeak and a little bump and I pull over to the side to get out and take a look. She's looking confused and finally pulls in behind me. I take a look, no damage, she managed to hit my wheel directly (hence the little bump).

Me: Well, no damage, looks like everything's fine.
Her: What about this scuff mark (points to bumper), that wasn't here before. This is a rental!
Me: Wow, that sucks. (admittedly this was sort of a dickish thing to say)
Her, angrily: Yeah it does!
Me: Well I was in an optional turn lane, you were in a turn only lane.
Her, deflated: Oh.. I didn't realize.
Me: Good luck then.

Just that, "oh.. I didn't realize", it warms the cockles of my shriveled and twisted heart.

fan-freaking-tastic

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:02:12 -0800

I now have the coolest cufflinks in existence. Oh sure, those rich folks have their fancy precious metals and stones but me.. me, I've got clockwork baby!

Mad props to team etruria for the gift - now I just need to find an excuse to wear a fancy shirt... while snowboarding. Maybe the cufflinks will have to wait until the new year.

Transformative weekend

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:23:14 -0800

So this is one way to spend four days - five really I guess given the tear out started on friday night and "temporary" countertops were done this morning. Fun things along the way? Swollen sodden floor boards under the sink to replace probably takes the cake really. I'm finally coming down off of my adrenaline high though and sleep sounds so very tempting...

The transformation:

In the beginning.

oh god, this is what I have to work with?

a little sheetrock hides it all nicely.

Now if only I cooked more.

I never want to paint or spackle again.

Lifesavas

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:01:15 -0800

I've had a little mural project to work on at work over the last few months during my down time. It's the end of a sprint where we're not shipping and we have a month before the next sprint so I've had a little more down time than usual. As such, behold the wall of spectacularness!

Yeah, it's from a tracing (go old school overhead projector!) so I don't get credit for freehand but I do have the baddest assed office wall around.