living in the middle of the ocean is weird

OMGWTFBBQ!

hrm

I went to look up how much I hate Hush, and remembered that I wanted them to make Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Video Game. Then I remembered that they are making that game.


but only (at a quality that I care to play) for systems I don't own.

Maybe I should look into buying a PS3.

ok, wtf?

Aren't rice krispy treats easy enough that kids can make them? Like 7 month old kids? Who exactly is so lazy they need to buy premade sheets of them?

Computing!

I've been down to just my laptop and a single ancient box since moving to Hawaii, due to the careful packing skills of my movers.  I finally bought a replacement, and have been having that old-school feeling of trying to get disparate parts working together.  Unfortunately, I fly out to Baltimore for a week on Wednesday, so I'm making this list partially as a to-do list for when I return.

Current status:

• HDMI display works to my television.  Unfortunately, the TV refuses to believe there is a computer attached, and so refuses to allow access to the overscan disabling functions.  What this means is that there's a fairly large border that the computer thinks is visible, but isn't.
• Surprisingly enough, HDMI sound worked with mplayer with only minimal tweaking.  This is a good sign.
• Wireless now works fine, allowing this computer to function as my wireless router.  I've enabled WPA, since I don't feel like doing MAC address filtering and running kittenwar net.  I am having some throughput issues, where the network stalls every ten seconds or so.  I suspect interference from neighbors, but that's a bit tricky to diagnose.
• mythtv sees the database, and looks like it should be functional with an evening of tweaking, once I get that overscan issue fixed.
• The IR remote I got apparently works randomly with mplayer.  I suspect it's a config issue.  I'm hoping that I can simply use the receiver, and train my universal remote to send the key codes.  
• My external USB drives live too high on the shelf to plug into the new computer.  I can probably solve this by just buying a few 2m cables.
• I don't have a video capture card yet, so it won't be a DVR quite yet, but that's the next project, once I get the rest of the system up and running.

Columbus day!

Between all the news stories, and this comic, I felt lie I should try myself.  Not bad, but they came out way too hot to eat immediately, and then got soggy.  They're also nearly impossible to eat without shooting sauce all over.


It just goes to show that not all kids shows are exclusively for kids.


I used mostly leftover stuff, and added some provolone to add some extra flavor.  It kind of seems to me that spaghetti taquitos would work a bit better, but that's not traditional.

Hey, I do too!

surprise hug!

Dichotomy

King my ass

You'd think a place with king in its name would be a better place to eat. Required valet parking, screwed up orders, super greasy food, poor service from random employees: none of these make "king" level dining.

Of course, maybe lobsters just don't care. They are ocean bugs.

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When life gives you 5 hours of fucking jetlag

You make breakfast.

I made bacon, waffles with syrup and peanut butter, yogurt, oj, and coffee. I guess that kind of makes up for waking up at 4am.

Also: Thank you autocorrect for changing "fucking" into "ducking."

I took 1002 pictures

That's only counting my camera, and not what I took with my cell phone.  It's going to take a bit more than I thought to put together some blog posts.

Heathrow "Giraffe"

I can kind of understand that you don't serve anything other than breakfast until 11AM BST. It's not like you're in a giant international airport that flies to more countries than most people are aware of. In any case, those people are probably on the same schedule anyway, right?

But, seriously, Heathrow Giraffe, you dare call those things pancakes? Pancakes are light and fluffy, with a faint sweetness that makes you happy. Children can make them, it shouldn't be that hard. Not hard, unlike your so-called pancakes.

I'm still unclear what you did to those blueberries, but just as a side note, we put them inside the cakes in the US. Keeps the little bastards from rolling everywhere. As a similar presentation issue, maybe the single sausage on an otherwise empty plate could be dressed up with something? Maybe just use a plate that matches the size of the food you place on top?

Also, may I complement you on finding the pulpiest glass of juice ever? I've eaten actual oranges that were more fluid.

Finally, I would like to point out that if your waitresses have horrible breath, perhaps they could be instructed to not speak in the direction of the customers? Or, frankly, anyone with a functioning nose.

My feet hurt

Blue is walking, Red is the underground I took (assuming I got the stations correct).  The green star is vaguely where the hotel I'm staying in is located.

Last Day in Belfast

I'm really tired, so I'm going to cheat this on this one, and suggest that I'll have really cool pictures tomorrow or the next day from the bus tour of Belfast I took today.  I also need to do a food post about all the stuff I've eaten here.  The UK kind of gets an unfair shake on food, but I like lamb, so I might be biased.

I also like proper cider, and that's incredibly easy to find here, unlike the apple-free-zone of Hawaii.

Belfast!

Just a few pictures from Belfast.  I've been largely stuck at the conference, and so I haven't been taking too many.  I figure I'll catch up in London.

A statue of Lord Kelvin.  Yes, that Kelvin.

The "Palm House," a greenhouse in the park. I think it's been closed everytime I walk past.

Memorial angel statue at the QUB entrance.

City Hall, where we met the Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Galileo. He sits in the entryway you take to get to the great hall.

The tiny, tiny shower  have to work with. Stupid tiny shower.

Really?

The original drive in my ancient pentium 200 computer has been running fine for about 13 years now (it just had a birthday last week).  I was poking around at the SMART attributes, and discovered the following:


# smartctl -T permissive --all /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/


=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST32120A
Serial Number:    XJ085025
Firmware Version: 0.34
User Capacity:    2,111,864,832 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   2
ATA Standard is:  Not recognized. Minor revision code: 0xffff
Local Time is:    Tue Aug 24 18:11:21 2010 HST
SMART is only available in ATA Version 3 Revision 3 or greater.
We will try to proceed in spite of this.
SMART support is: Ambiguous - ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE words 85-87 don't show if SMART is enabled.
                  Checking to be sure by trying SMART RETURN STATUS command.
SMART support is: Enabled


=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED


General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:                 (   0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x03) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        No Offline surface scan supported.
                                        No Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0002) Does not save SMART data before
                                        entering power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x00) Error logging NOT supported.
                                        No General Purpose Logging support.


SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 5
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000a   086   081   000    Old_age   Always       -       147595676
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0006   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       4
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0013   100   100   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       672
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0013   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   047   037   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       2804648590616
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0013   100   100   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       20


Warning: device does not support Error Logging
Error SMART Error Log Read failed: Input/output error
Smartctl: SMART Error Log Read Failed
Warning: device does not support Self Test Logging
Error SMART Error Self-Test Log Read failed: Input/output error
Smartctl: SMART Self Test Log Read Failed
Device does not support Selective Self Tests/Logging

Not only has it been running fine for 13 years, it really isn't even doing that badly.  The Seek_Error_Rate is a touch high, but it's still above threshold.  I'm also somewhat surprised that Power_Cycle_Count is 20. Really? I've only shut down the computer 20 times? 

We're Not 100% Satisfied Unless You Are. Let us Know What You Think.

1. Overall, how likely is it that you would recommend  Verizon Wireless to a friend or colleague?
 8


2. Please tell us why you chose this rating or what we can do to improve our service:

The coverage doesn't suck, and I wouldn't have to worry about using minutes to talk to this hypothetical "friend or colleague."

One improvement would be to stop putting needlessly expensive barriers on things. For example, tethering should be free, provided the data transferred isn't excessive. It seems to me that all data going through the phone should be treated equally. What makes a youtube byte more precious if it is forwarded to a laptop screen instead of displayed directly on the cellphone screen? Barring this, it would also be nice to have as a simple monthly add on.  If I travel one month a year, it would useful to have tethering for that, but it is silly to pay month after month for something I usually don't need.

Similarly, the pricing on text messages is obviously too high.   It seems doubly so when you note that both sender and recipient of the message pay, putting the price of a single text message at $0.40.  If this is a bandwidth limited issue (the SMS network cannot transfer more than X messages per minute, therefore pricing is used to prevent the system from being overwhelmed), then why are text message rates not time dependent?  Users have had on- and off-peak rates for decades for telephone service.  It stands to reason that a similar system would be widely accepted for text messaging as well.

3.Please tell us your name:

Thank you. A manager may call you, on your contact number or Verizon Wireless phone, to

better understand your feedback so that we can improve our service.

Thanks! We really appreciate your feedback.
Would you mind if we shared all or a portion of your comments in our online forums and/or marketing materials?
Of course, we respect your privacy, so if you're comfortable with us doing that, just click "Yes" below, and tell us how you'd like your name to appear (e.g. "John S., Ohio").
 x Yes I'm okay with you using my comments.
 No Please do not use them.

Frogger

Game over. :-/
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Huh

Assuming this isn't a photoshop like the back to the future thing was, things are a bit depressing. Will claims it was 15 years ago that this first aired.  That fits reasonably well with my memory of heading back to my bedroom to watch Simpson's while my parents watched some boring old-people show instead.

Fifteen years, huh?

Think back, and remember what you were doing, and how many worries you didn't have then that you do have now.

Now, don't you feel old, too?

Because when Chewbacca needs to fight Nazis

he saddles up the War-Squirrels.

What I'm talking about

In addition to the freecreditreport.com crap (which at least has a quick "oh yeah, we're totally going to enroll you in some dumb credit watch service" disclaimer at the end), tonight's Rachel Maddow had an ad for this useless shit. Magic Energy Bracelets. Plus, it's a nice classy looking operation, where the product homepage has a place to type in your credit card information and order without all that "clicking" and "shopping cart" hassle.

I would kind of hope that people watching this show would know better than to believe that a stupid loop of plastic will magically cure their problems.

Then again, I bet I could spray paint some zip ties silver.

mecha-crab!

Mufi singing

He's the mayor of honolulu.
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5 < 1

Also: 4 < 0 and 4 < 1. Steve Jobs and math are friends.

This looks like an alligator

Despite being the foot to my box fan.
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So

I did this this evening.

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The pope

Has a game
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wilder and piikoi fire

Building on left corner: the Makikian condo/apartment building. Building on right corner: fire department.

Looking down Piikoi street.

Decent shot of all the smoke. Was much worse a few minutes earlier.

This is a "braiser"

You're telling me that after two hours of braising, that lid isn't going to be a million degrees? I can barely get a grip on it cold. That's going to be impossible with a pot holder.

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Sqaure

That's it's shape.

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Evolution

Why have I never thought of this?

Thank you, terrible wonderful food suggestions of the 50's!

I found a color version!

Of the image I couldn't find before. Apparently only took 11 months.

I wonder which Julie's dog is leaning towards

My office door

is being attacked by prismatic spray.
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Really?

This hardly seems like the kind of news we need to-the-minute updates about.

How today is going

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Fuck you,

asshole.

Lies!

Filthy, filthy lies.

For Kyle and Julie

As I had mentioned on twitter, I was going to see Julie's hatred of Arby's and Kyle's unfamiliarity of Arby's by going there myself.

It was delicious.

I also went to the B&N next door, where I found a "this book is too cheap not to buy, plus I really don't have any books that qualify as humor that I'm reading right now."

You know, just in case

What are you doing, bear? You're not a ninja!

Oh...um...never mind then.

Martin Gardner died

It is a sad day on my bookshelves (and also whereever the two missing books are currently living).

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Yes (3)

Because the best strategy is certainly flying first class to San Francisco, waiting around for an hour and a half, and then flying back next door.  I'd suspect that's a good plan, except for the fact that the return trip is 24 times shorter.

Yes (2)

Because if I'm going to Austin, I want to bike my way there.