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Olympian activities

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

As the Olympics are currently underway, it’s worth remembering that not all the action and drama takes place on the field (or in the pool, on the court, etc.).

I’d read about the sexual activity at the Games before, but had forgotten sometime in the past several years.

Some of the drama occurs because of cheating or poor judging. Biased judging, if not to the level of actual corruption, has been around for quite some time. I can remember one Winter Olympiad when, during one of the ice skating events, I heard one of the commentators mention that one of the judges had deducted points from one competitor because of their choice of music.

The big scandal so far in these games relates to badminton teams trying to lose in order to better their chances for later in the competition. It got so bad that one match was booed by the spectators. Here’s some video of the game in question, although it’s pretty short and disjointed.

Poor judging can have repercussions beyond the official standings. Even when the athletes accept their medals, they don’t always keep them – although that’s sometimes for altruistic reasons, as noted in the link.

Not everyone likes the Olympics. I’ll usually watch, but not always – there are events I won’t watch, because I don’t believe they belong. That’s a rant for another time, but it boils down to the Olympic motto: Citius, altius, fortius. If you can’t determine victory with a stopwatch, a tape measure, or a scale, I don’t think it belongs. Anything with style points or technique judging is right out. YMMV. Certainly, many of the most popular events wouldn’t be allowed under my rules.

Mike notes that the Olympics are popular with a lot of people who are normally hostile to popular sports, and suggests a reason why. He may have a point. Selwyn Duke notes something that may be supporting evidence, depending on whether the reporters were ignorant about athletics or deliberately trying to mislead the public.

Neo likes the Olympics, but doesn’t appreciate the change that has occurred in women’s gymnastics over the last few decades. I can see and understand her point, and even agree with her conclusion. Women’s gymnastics is a much more vigorous athletic endeavor these days, but the gymnasts I’ve been watching don’t have the grace Tourischeva and others had. However, refresh your memory about my earlier comment above about stop watches, etc.

Slate has an interesting interactive toy that allows you to compare previous Olympic gold-medal performances in some of the events.

Speaking of Usain Bolt, who is mentioned in the headline of the Slate article, he’s a class act.

Finally, NBC has been catching grief concerning their coverage of the Games, particularly their online streaming (which I haven’t tried). This is perhaps the most pointed, yet gentle, commentary I’ve seen on the subject.

Posted in Fitness & Health, In the news | Comments Closed

It’s been a decade …

Saturday, June 9th, 2012

… since the Hayman fire. I remember the day the smoke reached Denver; I wrote about the fire on my old website, archived here and here.

Terry Barton, who started the fire, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but that sentence was overturned, and she was later sentenced to 15 years of probation. Insufficient, to my mind, for a fire that caused that much damage and several deaths.

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Blogger Day of Silence

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Ace called for today to be a Day of Silence. Given my infrequent postings, I don’t know how anyone could tell whether or not I’m participating.

In any case, the purpose is to highlight the actions of Brett Kimberlin and his associates, and to call on Congress to take action to prevent the suppression of free speech intended by these actions.

Just to make it clear, I’m joining the effort.

Posted in Activities, In the news, Legal Affairs, Politics, Voices | Comments Closed

May the twenty-fifth

Friday, May 25th, 2012

There are a number of things to note about this day. Some are significant; some aren’t.

As much as I enjoyed reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and watching the TV series, the fact that it’s Towel Day isn’t that important to me.

Likewise, the fact that it was 35 years ago that Star Wars was released is interesting, but not important.

What is important is the Brett Kimberlin blogburst.

Who is Brett Kimberlin? He’s a con man and convicted domestic terrorist who’s currently being funded by various individuals and foundations on the left side of the political divide.

What’s he doing? He’s trying to suppress anyone telling the truth about him or his connections. He’s using lawfare, perjury, and threats to harass anyone involved in such efforts. For the most part, such people are conservative bloggers, but there are some liberals who’ve gotten on his bad side, also.

Stacy McCain has taken his family into hiding because of what happened after he started reporting on Kimberlin.

Kimberlin tried to frame Aaron Walker for a felony, and both Aaron and his wife lost their jobs because their bosses and coworkers felt threatened.

Patrick Frey, who blogs under the name “Patterico,” has a very detailed, chilling tale to tell that starts with how someone impersonated him in order to get a SWAT team sent to his house thinking that he was a dangerous killer.

Brett Kimberlin is a scary individual who associates with scary individuals. They’re trying to chill discourse, and I don’t want to be someone who stands by and lets them get away with it without notice.

Posted in In the news, Legal Affairs, Politics | Comments Closed

Missed anniversary

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

I didn’t realize this until today, but Monday was the 35th anniversary of the Apple ][ computer. I bought one in 1978; it was the first electronic computer I owned (I owned a Digi-Comp I when I was younger).

My Apple was serial number A2S1-2174. I bought it used for $1000, and it came with 16k of RAM and only the cassette interface for mass storage. I eventually got it upgraded to dual floppies and 48k of RAM, but it took a couple of years. Most of that time, I was in the West Indies, and computer parts and peripherals weren’t available. I felt good about it because I managed to get two floppies while they were still in short supply, and I only paid $150 for each 16k RAM expansion when Apple was charging $300 each.

I had a lot of fun with that machine. I had one program distributed by the 6502 Group, and I had another program published by the Apple Puget Sound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E. – I guess the “S” in “Sound” was silent). I also had an article published in Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia (the October 1979 issue), but they weren’t able to print the source code listings I submitted, which was very disappointing to me. At the time, though, I was in the West Indies, and the printouts I sent were from a huge, heavy, line printer, and I had no floppies, so I sent them hardcopy on green-and-white fanfold paper, as well as a cassette with the code. I believe that they’d have been able to handle a floppy, but they couldn’t deal with the cassette, and retyping from my listings was, I’m sure, quite unappealing.

I’d ordered a computer before the Apple, though. There was a company in the Boston area called ECD, which was started by some MIT people, if I’m remembering correctly. They were offering a computer called the MicroMind, which sounded incredibly advanced for the time. Unfortunately, they produced very few of them. I think it’s because they decided to go head-to-head against DEC in the business market. I consider myself lucky to have gotten my money back from them before they went under.

I’ve never been big on games, but there were a few I enjoyed, and would like to still have available. One was called Ricochet (no relation to the PC game). It had paddles that would flip, and launchers in the corners of the screen. When it was your turn, you could move one or more paddles (all in the same direction), or you could launch a ball from either of your launchers. When a ball hit a paddle, it would be reflected at a 90 degree angle, and the paddle would flip from vertical to horizontal, or vice-versa. You’d also get a point for each paddle the ball hit. If the ball hit a launcher, it was disabled for a few turns. It was a lot of fun. I don’t have the game anymore, but I think I may still have the documentation that came with it.

There was also a space shoot-’em-up game called Alien Ambush (I think – it’s been a long time). It had a basic similarity with Space Invaders, in that you controlled a ship at the bottom of the screen, and would shoot at alien ships that entered from the top. However, instead of marching ranks of aliens these ships would swoop and swirl and launch bombs toward you. The advertising catchphrase for the game was, “You haven’t lived until you’ve died in space.”

I remember staying up one Friday night until about 3am with a friend, working together until we beat the chess program Sargon II. There’s no way I’d have beaten it by myself; I’m not that good a chess player.

I kept that Apple until around 1990, then gave it, and almost all of my magazines and software, away. I did keep a few things, such as my copy of the “big red book” that’s signed by Steve Wozniak and Randy Wigginton. Sometimes, I wish I’d kept the rest.

Posted in Fun Stuff, In the news, It's all about me, Software, Technology | Comments Closed

Earl Scruggs, RIP

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Earl Scruggs died yesterday. I’m sorry to hear that. There are a lot of people who play in the style that he pioneered, but he always seemed to have a little something extra in his playing, at least, to my ear.

I bought my first banjo in 1979, and laboriously learned to play three or four tunes badly using the books and tapes I bought, including Earl’s book with it’s little floppy record. I never learned to play the instrument beyond reproducing “fret this string here, then pick it” sequences until after I’d attended Pete Wernick’s banjo camp – about two weeks after camp, something just “clicked” and I suddenly knew what I was doing. I still can’t play well, partly because I’ve largely moved from banjo to ukulele, but there’s a qualitative difference in what I do now compared to what I did before.

I’ve been to Pete’s banjo camp twice, and I remember that he would have all of the attendees sign a birthday card for Earl, since the banjo camps took place around his birthday.

I only got to see Earl live one time, which was the last time he performed in Denver. Several people got him to sign their banjos after the concert. I didn’t bring mine, but I did get his signature on my copy of Masters of the Five-String Banjo.

I’ve got several Earl Scruggs LPs and CDs. I need to move them back up to the top of the playlist; maybe it’s time to get inspired to pick up the banjo again.

Posted in In the news, Music | Comments Closed

Miscellany 22

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

I see by the clock on the clubhouse wall that I haven’t posted in a month. Sorry.

Then again, nobody’s been complaining … about that, anyway.

Be that as it may, I’m going to clean out some tabs and saved links.

Back around 1985, my boss brought in a summer intern and told me to get some use out of him. Four days later, we sent him back to his professor – I’d spent about 10 hours over those four days explaining to him in detail how to write a program that would have taken me somewhere around an hour to write. The problem was that he had only written Pascal programs on VAX hardware, and had no conception of how a program could actually deal with the underlying hardware itself. I was reminded of that when I ran across Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal. I remember that from when it first appeared – I didn’t get Datamation, but I had coworkers who did. Don’t skip the linked “Story of Mel,” which also is pretty good.

I have a hand-cranked radio, but this is something else: a wind-up AA battery.

This article on medical school acceptance rates by race is pretty horrifying. It reminds me of an article I read some time ago that made the case that affirmative action was reducing the number of minority (specifically, black) attorneys. The mechanism proposed was that blacks would be admitted to law schools that their scores wouldn’t get them into if they were white, which made it harder to keep up with the rest of the student body, so they’d drop out. It is likely they’d have been able to graduate from a less-prestigious (and less difficult) school, so affirmative action had the exact opposite of the purported effect.

This is cool – do-it-yourself eye exams on a smartphone.

This is also cool – electric currents passing through the brain can induce a state more conducive to learning. Be careful if you do it yourself, though. More here.

I wish this had been available when I broke my ankle last year.

Some kids are smart. Ten-year-old Clara Lazen is going to have plenty of geek cred for coming up with a previously-unknown molecule that’s likely to be explosive.

A one-stroke penalty if a bomb goes off during your swing? That seems harsh.

This is one of those articles that’s worth it just for the headline. So is this one.

I’m amazed that someone could call the first score of the Super Bowl correctly.

To solve a problem, you need to define it correctly. Even without committing a category error, it could be that you are solving the wrong problem.

This is another of those computer toys that let you get an idea of the scale of the universe. I wish things like this had been available when I was a child. We had to make do with the movie “Powers of Ten.” Of course, I was in high school when that came out, so it’s still not a childhood memory, per se.

Speaking of films, I’ve seen two of these. I suspect my daughter has seen more of them than I have. If not, she probably will after checking out the list.

Several years ago, my doctor told me to start taking a daily aspirin. I had to give it up a few months later, because I was getting frequent nosebleeds. If only I had known the healing power of bacon! I fear my cats may have caused problems, though.

Slightly related to that, there’s good news about eating fried foods. It doesn’t match up with Satchel Paige’s advice not to eat fried food because “it angrifies the blood,” but I suspect the food he was familiar with was fried in different oils.

Attractions, flotation devices, or airbags. I’m glad her breasts helped, but I consider her misshapen. I remember the news stories when she acquired the infection that caused her to get reduction surgery – she’d had to go to Brazil because doctors in the US wouldn’t expand her breasts any more.

Speaking of breasts, I’ve seen a few protests here and there, but I’ve yet to witness one like this. (NSFW, unless topless women are allowed by your office dress code.)

How to distract your enemy. I particularly enjoy the third panel.

Lots of older periodicals available here.

Speaking of reading, I’m going to be waiting for this e-book app to become available. I just hope that it doesn’t require a new proprietary DRM’d format.

Some nice music here. I listened to several of the young lady’s other videos, and they were nice. A bit too similar for listening to in a block, but they’d be very nice in a shuffle.

If your taste runs to psychedelic music, try this. I have the Nuggets LP in a box in my garage. If I’m remembering correctly, I’ve got the 1976 release, not the earlier one.

Here’s an interesting music game.

Besides seeming a bit tacky, is a Titanic Memorial Cruise a good idea? Some people don’t think so. Having been on one cruise myself (which I quite enjoyed, actually), I’ll admit to some misgivings. It makes me wonder how I ever managed when I was in the Navy.

I do fairly well with English grammar. Many of the things I read would irk me less if their authors took this advice to heart.

I could add more to this post, but I think I’ll finish with this tweet that expresses an awe that I’ve experienced when reading code.

Posted in Education, Fitness & Health, Fun Stuff, In the news, Music, Science, Software | Comments Closed

Happy Birthday to …

Sunday, January 8th, 2012

… Elvis Presley, who would have been 77 today.

The song of the day is not one of his, though. It’s an old fiddle tune written to commemorate a famous battle.

Posted in In the news, Military, Music | Comments Closed

Happy Birthday to …

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

… Charles Addams, who would have been 100 years old today.

He’s one of my favorite cartoonists. I have most of the books that collect the Addams Family cartoons (Black Maria, Nightcrawlers, Favorite Haunts, Drawn and Quartered, Creature Comforts, Monster Rally, The Groaning Board, Addams and Evil), as well as a book that provides a lot of information about the Addams Family TV show (Addams Family Revealed). I’ve used a couple of the cartoons on housewarming invitations in the past. Perhaps that’s why very few people showed up?

Posted in Fun Stuff, In the news, Reading | Comments Closed

Year-end link dump

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

In Japan, tradition for New Year’s Day is that it’s a fresh start – houses are cleaned, debts are paid, and so on. I’m not going to be anywhere near a fresh start this New Year’s, but I can at least try to clear out some of the links I’ve been accumulating.

This is not any sort of year-in-review, so don’t expect comprehensive links or dots being connected. This is just some of what I’ve accumulated in the last couple of months.

We’ll start with the Christmas/winter-related links while they’re fresh.

The Portal Christmas Tree is pretty cool. It’s appeared on a number of websites recently. The Portal 2 present wasn’t quite so widely noted. This last Portal-related link shows how Santa gets around quickly.

Instead of the Portal tree, which is one tree in two places, the Obama’s have 37 separate Christmas trees.

I’ve never cared for Star Trek ornaments, but I like this.

If you’re concerned that your stocking won’t hold your stuff, you can build one of these.

Do you tell spooky stories at Christmas? Some people do.

Some people like music to go with (inspired by) those spooky stories.

Some people have entirely too much time to play in the snow. Looks like fun. Back around 1977, I made this kind of fancy snow sculpture with my housemates, but I’ve not done it since then. Most winters, there’s seldom enough snow where I am to make an attempt worthwhile.

Art links:

Street Art Utopia has a wonderful retrospective of street art from the past year.

Variations on a theme. Some drawing are likely to be NSFW.

I like the fourth picture, but they’re all good.

Did Vincent Van Gogh have a vision deficiency?

Music links:

The Whitney Music Box. It’s fun to watch, too. Via.

Play Ukulele Hero.

So you’ve heard a song in a movie, and you want to know what it is.

Math and Science links:

A new technique lets you count the animals living in a body of water by monitoring the DNA in a sample of it.

This is amazing! MIT has a new high-speed camera system that can show the advance of light.

The archives of the Royal Society have been put onto the net for free access.

Nature wants to eat you.

This is cool! Watch the video showing how a new spray can keep your clothes and other things clean. I could use this on my windows and shower doors.

Another success for adult stem cells. To the best of my knowledge, all stem cell successes to date have involved adult stem cells, not fetal stem cells.

Do you believe in anthropogenic global warming enough to kill people? I don’t.

On science, pseudo-science, and heresy as it relates to AGW.

Nine equations true geeks should know (or pretend to know).

Technology and Toys links:

One of the Christmas presents I gave this year was a nice watch. Personally, I wear a cheap Casio watch currently, but I’ve been thinking of getting myself a nicer one. Here is one website I’ve checked out. You can find some nicer watches (definitely out of my price range) here, including this one that is wayout of my price range. It is beautiful, though. There is some attraction in an Android watch, though.

I had a Digi-Comp1 when I was younger. All that I have left is the manual. I may have to play with this emulator some time, but it was a pretty rudimentary computer, so perhaps not. Via Boing Boing.

I came so close to building one of these for a senior project in EE. I wish I had.

I have fond memories of Rogue, but they’re not too specific, because it’s been a long time since I’ve played. I wonder how close this is.

I haven’t tried this game-development system yet, but it looks interesting.

There’s not only an app for that, there’s now a brick-and-mortar app store.

It can’t tell you what changes were made, but there’s a new computer program that can tell you what parts of an image have been changed.

I remember reading this article (the Popular Science one) when it came out. I thought it would be a neat thing, and wanted to try making an aquarium pump. Unfortunately, I was a poor pre-teen at the time, and had no way to obtain the supplies.

This looks cool (and I almost put it in the art category), but I have to wonder about traction.

How cool is the idea of black boxes for archery arrows?

Politics, culture, and the economy:

An infographic about the Federal budget.

If the media were actually conservative, or even impartial or honest, this would be one of a number of major administration scandals.

The claim has been made that Occupy Wall Street is a grassroots uprising just like the Tea Party, but on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Is it? Is it really?

I had to ask some friends not to invite me for dinner if they were also inviting a specific neighbor of theirs to the same dinner; at each get-together where we were both present, he seemed to be challenging me to respond to his provocatively-stated political opinions, and I refused to submit myself to him being obnoxious all evening, and I didn’t want to make a scene. It’s not an unknown problem.

There are a lot of scary charts and graphs around. Here are two of them.

Are white men gods? Fred makes a good case for it.

At the very least, it appears that old Republican white men know what’s going on in the world.

Muslims have killed more than 1000 Christians this year. They don’t limit themselves to Christian targets though, and the numbers add up.

It used to be that medicine had little relation to or dependence upon evolutionary concepts. As that is no longer the case, I weep for the future of medical treatment.

When should you use violence? Don’t skip the comments.

Sometimes, they don’t even make an effort to hide their attitudes.

Food and Drink links:

A cheeseburger requires the capabilities of modern society.

Recipes for Liquers.

Highway closed by 20-ton Marmite spill. Kind of reminds me of the Great Molasses Flood.

I’ve made orange peel candy before, but it’s nice to keep a recipe handy.

I’m planning to try this recipe tomorrow night.

Sometime, I’ll have to try to make Italian Beef.

Most honey isn’t honey (according to the FDA).

Whisky and lasers sounds like a dangerous pairing, but it’s actually useful.

I’ve had a couple of these brews. I used to have some bottles saved from various brews with fun names (I had a bottle of Beer Goggles IPA, and two of the Denver Zoo’s custom labels), but I got rid of them some time ago.

I never really cared for Dippin’ Dots, although it was an interesting thing to try when I was young. It seems that other people feel the same way.

Miscellaneous links:

“I propose that world building is the primary distinguishing characteristic of SF and fantasy.” Years ago, I attended a presentation on world building given by John Barnes. It was fascinating – among other things, he talked about Mac applications he’d developed to do forecasting of everything from expected rates of technology introduction to likely political alliances to popular names that could be extrapolated for particular future time periods.

Trade your old gold for a new cat.

Lost/missing culture

An enlightening discourse on Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits.

I’ve seen this guy before, but he wasn’t modeling bras then.

Speaking of modeling, a Swedish fashion chain is under fire for showing their clothing using computer-generated models.

Also, as a model, you should know what terms are in your model release.

Here is one link to a resource for learning languages.

Speaking of languages, they’re being mapped by Twitter.

Like a southern accent is good for a drop in perceived IQ, the same is true of dressing in a certain manner.

I think I’ve posted this before, but I ran across it again recently. An amusing anecdote about an attack cat.

Wisdom from Calvin’s father.

Ernie Pyle remembers Clark Kent.