Thursday: That's dumb

They're repaving roads in my neighborhood, so there are a bunch of cones signs up all over the place.  While waiting for a truck to move this morning, I noticed that one of the signs was a "right lane closed ahead" that had a patch over the "right" converting it into the similar "left lane closed ahead" sign.  Which you can buy online.  That's not the point of this though.

It made me think.  Take one of those, and put left on one side, right on the other.  Then, attach an opaque cloth to one side that can cover whichever sign you don't need.  Put some snaps or something so you can hold the opaque cloth in place.  There.  Now you have both signs in one place, and you don't need to patch one into the other.  You always have both.  Surely I can't be the only one who's thought of this, right?

Bunny.

• "Webcomics printed out with the text removed and then given to English students in Japan to fill in" is a sorely underappreciated format.
• Scotty from Star Trek was a good guy.
• That's an impressive number of legos.
• Tim Horton's put a baby doughnut inside a regular doughnut. With jelly. Why is this not a regular thing?
• "A Partial EM Algorithm for Clustering White Breads". I love reading arxiv:stat.
• Signs Bob Woodward probably regrets things now:
• When NPR doesn't find anything sane to what you're claiming.
• When Gawker photoshops clown makeup on you and suggests either you're stupid or a liar.
• When the Onion gets you with probably the best zing in a while.

Wednesday: A fucking doc file.

"Almost there!"

Yep.

• Squirrel!
• Charizard and Misty and Brock?  Excellent.
• EBT sushi.  See, I wasn't kidding when I mentioned that driving around on the west side of the island is kind of depressing.

"WESSSST!"

Tuesday: This is an off week, I think

• I've watched a number of these German simulation games on youtube.  These fake ones wouldn't really surprise me too much.
• Beauty and the Beast.
• Fox vs. Snickers.  Worth it just for the pronunciation of Snickers in Russia.
• "[...] who walked away without charges."
• 
• So, if raising the Medicare age increases total cost, I wonder what would happen if you went the other way.  Fucking minimization problems, how do they work?

Monday: I've had a headache ever since that talk this afternoon

I think I overworked the math part of my brain understanding the maths he was mathing at us.  I should probably math my math tomathrow, so it doesn't overmath.

"I am by far the most badass cardinal to ever live.  Check out how I'm wearing armor and a sword with my cardinal robes all 'oh, yeah, sorry. I'm cool and, also? A cardinal.' I'm like a real life D&D character."

I came up with a creative caption for the last image.  I'm just going to note that this is a drawing of the Abu Simbel temple of Ramesses II.

• Pizza.
• Again, pizza.
• I'm glad that there are people who do even more useless things than write silly captions for long-dead cardinals.
• JK Rowling is a decent person.  The fact that this is news is kind of depressing.
• If only all these governors had some sort of representatives that they could use to communicate these attitudes.
• For fuck's sake, why do we even have laws if they're just going to be this fucking useless?
• Your move, crazy conspiracy theorists.

Sunday: Now I remember why I don't go to that mall very often.

It's super crowded, parking is terrible, and it doesn't have anything that I can't find elsewhere with less hassle.

Then I went to Target.

Wait, what?

How are these different than these sippy cups that were recalled last year? The ones last year would only poke out one eye at a time.

• This is the best mineral in existence.
• Today's Pokemon joke.
• I did not care about the Oscars as much as the entire rest of the world.  Nice to see somebody realized that kicking out someone who just won one was a bad idea.

Best dinner

Raspberry sorbet + local strawberries + some shaved dark chocolate.

\begin{OriginalIronChefCommentary}
The sweetness of the strawberries counteracts the tartness of the raspberry.
\end{OriginalIronChefCommentary}

Saturday: Sheets are fucking expensive

My new bed was delivered today, so I had to go out to buy sheets and things (since the new one is bigger than the old one).  Mattress pad + a new pillow + one set of sheets = 16% the price of the bed itself?  Is this like a razor/blade strategy?  I also had problems finding decent sheets that are completely cotton.  It's the tropics, polyester is a terrible thing here.  I think tomorrow will involve driving around to see if I can find better prices.

Yes, I know, online.  It's something for me to do tomorrow.

Then I had sushi:

Spicy ebi fry.  This is impossible to eat because it's too tall, but really tasty.

I was at seat #1, so I could steal all the delicious things immediately after they were placed on the belt.

"Dear Captain Planet, I think you know what you should have used instead of 'Heart'.  Ma-Ti was fucking useless."

• My WF didn't have these when I looked today.  I really wish smokey bacon chips were available here.
• I've been getting the feeling that Bob Woodward has become cranky old douchebag, and it seems other people are getting that idea too.
• I had never heard of this story before.  I guess she's grown up now, and is making documentaries.
• "[...] arrested on suspicion of resisting an officer and obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties [...]" Really?  Maybe next time they make up something to arrest someone for, they'll make sure he isn't a widely known ex-rapper.
• So yes, if we had a proper single payer insurance system, none of this would happen.  Monopsony would prevent every hospital from having random prices that don't relate to anything, and would help keep administrator salaries reasonable.  CSB: I went to the doctor last week and got two drugs.  The pharmacist rang it up wrong, so the sticker didn't have the correct co-pay price.  When I looked, the list prices came out to about $700, for which I paid $30 in co-pays.  How can anyone claim that this system is at all good?

Friday: I have pretty much nothing today.

• Squirrel.
• Totoro umbrella.
• Star Wars military studies.

Thursday: Headaches

Those robots couldn't be more "BEEP BOOP, WE ARE NOT PLOTTING TO KILL YOU, FLESHBAG" if they tried.  

• Sad squirrel.
• That is too many bunnies.
• Moon transit.
• I'm linking to this because I'm concerned the Fatal Frame Let's Play I was watching on youtube isn't going to finish, so I'm going to designate this one as a back up.

Wednesday: I think this is just going to be links today

I never liked Persian.  Giovanni was good as the evil mastermind, though.

• Yes, I am posting this link solely so I can use one of my labels.
• This story also has an associated label, but is more about how bad this policy is.  I often take pictures of random things on the plane, because I'm bored and this damn flight is 6-8 hours long.
• "House Republicans say they believe they have politically inoculated themselves against claims they are responsible for the cuts by approving measures last year that would have substituted reductions in government programs like food stamps for the lower Pentagon spending." Wow. Fuck you, House Republicans.
• Denny's.
• Charizard.
• Comets.
• Wait, Catwoman is going to be in the JLA?  WTF?
• First, that's a terrible drawing of her on the cover.
• Second, she's technically a villain.
• Third, she's not really a team player.  Cats, you know?
• Unrelated points:
• WTF, Hawkman? Did you just straight up murder that dude?
• Vibe?  Really?  Hasn't he been a bad idea since Justice League Detroit?
• WTF happened to Amanda Waller?
• Yes, I know I'm just ranting about comic books at this point, but I'm seriously baffled by these decisions.

Tuesday: I finally found the damn bug at work

Computer bug, not insect bug.

The fog in the background makes me think of a different bus.

This one.

• I apparently missed this story before.  I'm kind of curious what store they're going to replace it with. I can't think of many that can fill a three story mall location.  They must have some idea if they paid that much to end the lease.
• Cats are jerks.
• I kind of disagree with this study.  It's presenting the deaths by fraction of total crew.  That's somewhat reasonable, but my recollection is that most deaths occur on away missions.  Therefore, I think you need to fold in a term to account for the probability of dying on one of those missions.  Since the main characters always return, this term is going to suggest strongly that if you're wearing red and go on an away mission, you're not coming home.
• 
• This story makes some sense, but kind of comes off like a conspiracy theory.  "The south tries to force workers into low paying jobs by stripping away anything that could allow them to organize or easily switch jobs."
• Of course, then I find this story, of a Republican governor in the south hacking at unemployment benefits in a way that could be seen to keep people in low paying jobs from fear of being unable to support themselves without it.
• And then Sam Brownback does shit like this.  

Monday: President's Day!

That means it's a day off.  Due to circumstances totally under my control, I used this day to get sushi at a different place:

Yes, the strawberry soda won the battle of "don't I sound tasty?"

It's always so clear when I go to Genki why I usually do KuruKuru.  Genki is more expensive, with most things at the $3.80 price point instead of the $2.75 at Kuru.  The ahi looked terrible today, and Kuru always has nice bright red slices.  The spicy ebi roll above had a weird mix of sweet&sour sauce instead of the spicy mayo.  Not very good.  I also had bad unagi today, with rice that wasn't packed together at all.  So, it's more expensive, not as tasty, and I question their sauce choices.  Strawberry soda was good, though.

And yes, those are french fries drifting away from me. French fries.

The reason for the less desirable sushi place was that I finally decided to stop being lazy and do the standard President's Day thing: buying furniture.  Today's goal was to get a new bed, and I successfully did that.  Hopefully this will help me with the "waking up with horrible pain everywhere" problem.  It's also being delivered on Saturday, so I don't have that long to wait.

"Listen. Just leave the keys in the ignition, and step out of the bus.  No one has to get hurt today.  You tell the police whatever you want.  You'll never be able to give a decent description of us with these masks on."

• Usually my police links aren't this funny. I don't really see that this is something that really needs a serious investigation.
• I think the more accurate description of this ad is, "Even Christopher Columbus is like, 'WTF is this shit?'".
• Jobs for astronomers.  I hope I won't need a new one anytime soon, but I thought this was interesting.
• I watched the original video, since I usually do video games via youtube now.  In any case, this gifset is worth looking at.  It's unclear, but there are two people playing the game, each controlling part of the controls.
• "Broccoli Cilantro." Why?

Sunday: Yay three day weekends

Today was ramen day, but I didn't take any pictures of ramen.  I did take one of this giant karaage:

Here's a lion:

Rar.

• Comet PANSTARRS.
• Did you know you could download all your tweets?  I didn't until I saw someone else talking about it.
• It's been kind of interesting to see how slashdot has changed over the years.  It's clear now that it's degenerated into a bunch of people talking about things they have no clue about.  This article in particular seemed to be a good example.
• Wifi names.  Here are some I can see from my couch:
• ESSID:"BrightDeer-guest"
• ESSID:"Bitches Ain't Here"
• ESSID:"BadGirlsClub"
• ESSID:"Gustave"
• ESSID:"PotterNet"
• ESSID:"Hercules"
• ESSID:"jackal"
• ESSID:"Wilder Warriors"
• ESSID:"EmeraldCheetah-guest"
• So is there something that generates names using $adjective+$animal?
• Because everyone should read Brad DeLong's recaps. Not just because he finds a paper describing how to make pseudoephedrine from meth.

Saturday: Driving all over town

I still didn't find everything I wanted.  I guess that means I need to go out tomorrow.  Maybe get ramen for lunch.

What are you doing, cow? Cars aren't beds, they're not even spelled the same!

Action angle!

That's it. Go home. Today was boring.

Friday: This kind of falls into the "how did I know so much of this already" category

Cats are dumb.

• Everyone saw this, right?  Sequestration is by far the dumbest thing anyone has ever come up with.  I wish legislators had to have a functional knowledge of math and economics before they could get the job.
• The NRA.
• Gee, it's almost as if Walmart is concerned that they're going to make less money because a lot of people are poor, so they have decreased demand.  If only there was some way the government could prop up demand.  Like, if they could fund a lot of projects to dump money into the economy.  If only.
• It's good to see that rich people are still getting more richer.  It must be hard when the president is such an obvious communist nazi, and keeps stopping them from creating jobs.

A break because Dan suggested that this image was NSFW:

Thursday: Might as well make tasty food

Since we all know that this is true:

That's right, Jake.

So, what are we going to make?  First, let's try to do some fingerling potatoes in a confit style.  Melt two sticks of butter, add some olive oil to decrease the smoke point a bit, add some cloves of garlic and the potatoes, and chuck it in the oven at 300 for an hour.

Garlic floats in molten butter, potatoes don't.

Next up, the worst filet of beef I've ever had from WF.  I had to argue with the guy at the meat counter yesterday that I didn't want the damn surf and turf deal, I just wanted the filet.  Preferably local, but they "don't have that today."  So I got this tough flavorless bastard:

Nice sear, but again, not a very good steak to start with.

Next, I need to top it with something that does have flavor, and I'm not doing a lobster tail.  Slice of foie gras should work nicely:

I'm even more impressed with this sear.

 Deglaze pan with some mushrooms, then double deglaze with some brandy, dump onto plate.

Put some asparagus there so you can pretend this is healthy.

Not bad, other than the steak.  Mushrooms worked well, but probably could have used more brandy (the flavor was uneven, with some being full of taste, and others not).  The potatoes worked better than expected, and served as a nice base to soak up juices.  I didn't need as many as I used, and had they not been soaking up flavor elsewhere, they would have needed a lot more salt.  Asparagus is asparagus.  I just quick steamed it in the oven by wrapping it in foil with a lemon slice.

I also realized today after reading everything in my RSS feeds that valentine's day is now identical to how it was in elementary school: you show everyone what TV shows/movies/etc you like this year by getting (or photoshopping) valentines that have those characters on them.

• Best cosplay ever.
• Natasha draws the characters again.
• Wait, we don't get three interesting flavors, we only get one?  You're all jerks, Lays.  Those sriracha freaks are going to ruin my chicken and waffles, aren't they?
• Baby red pandas!
• I disagree about all the New Scooby Movies guests, but that's probably because I've seen those a thousand times.
• Charizard was always Ash's best pokemon.
• Huh.  Space is attacking Russia.  Again.
• After the fact editing! I forgot to add that even though valentine's day is pretty much crap, it does have one thing going for it.

Wednesday: Lots of crappy shit happened today

But I'm tired and my head hurts, so I'm just going to talk about this:

What?

Yep, crazy Japanese Kit-Kats.  They had them at Longs, and even though this bag was like $5, I bought it anyway.  The label claims that these are "vanilla ice" flavored, which means I don't need to make a joke here.

Note that Japanese candy technology is far better than American: the wrapper has a convenient notch for tearing it open.  One tiny notch, and the amount of effort needed to get the candy to your mouth is now 5% what it once was.

I'm unclear if Japanese ink technology is also super advanced, but I don't think I have a pen that would write well on shiny plastic candy wrapper.  Maybe I'll try tomorrow.  I assume these are special valentine versions, so you can hand out individually labeled candy.

No flash because all the flash pictures washed out the bar too much.  These are significantly smaller than the regular US KKs.

I'm not sure what "vanilla ice" means in Japanese.  The Japanese is just "BA-NI-RA-A I-SU [flavor]", so that's not terribly helpful.  After eating it, I came to the conclusion that "cake frosting" was probably the closest thing that I could match it to.  Japan apparently has terrible ice cream if that's what it's supposed to be.

• I saw this story yesterday, and I guess this is some sort of improvement.  Still curious as to what he did to Israel.
• I saw the trailer for this yesterday.  Looks interesting, and now knowing that it's a four-part series explains the weird 1's in the Japanese trailer.  I'm a bit concerned about Togusa, as if this is Motoko's early history, Togusa should still be in the police, right?  Maybe I need to read the comic again.
• Oh, is it?
• Squirrels!
• Ice King!
• See above, headache, so I'll save this here for tomorrow.

Tuesday: I didn't watch the state of the union

But twitter told me I missed the best part:

Nice job ruining Marco Rubio's career, Marco Rubio. 

Adventure Time!

• Ice King!
• I'm somewhat mixed on this idea, but reading the comments it's clear that a lot of people refuse to believe that there are people who don't need piles of leftovers, and don't use things fast enough to justify having "a well stocked pantry."  Cooking for yourself means that sometimes you don't really need piles of ingredients around all the time.
• Wizards.
• When I was a kid, we were driving down a street, and I started laughing uncontrollably.  I had seen the sign for the last entry on this list, and made the same joke.  Like twenty years ago.   

Daily to-do list for Roomba

1. Wake up at the wrong time, because fuck you, I don't remember what time it is.
2. Find a kleenex.
3. Shred kleenex all over the room.
4. Find phone charger cable.
5. Trace cable back to plug.
6. Pull plug under bed.
7. Find a sock.
8. Get the sock tangled up in brushes. 
9. Die in the middle of the room.

Monday: Three things

1. So the pope resigned?  America's last bastion of accurate journalism covers the facts.
2. Kim Jong-Un got a fade?  Really?  That's kind of an outdated haircut.  Plus, why have so many chairs if you're not going to let anyone sit down.  You're just a jerk.
3. That damn paper finally got submitted.  Now to navigate the fun of angry reviewers, rewrites, and eventually getting to the last step: posting to astro-ph.  Because, let's be honest here: no one cares about the article once it's accepted and you can post it to astro-ph.  Magic pixies take care of it, and ensure that it gets onto ADS and then into the paper version that sits in a library forever.

Last week, I saw this, and decided to try and recreate it in more of a salad style than the appetizer style the original seemed to be.  Scallops, black forest bacon (which is nearly candied already), arugula, tomato, plus a quick sauce of sriracha, dijon, maple syrup, and bacon grease.  Everything worked well except the scallops.  They cooled off in the salad, and lukewarm scallop turns out to be a bit less than tasty.  Bacon's good, though.  Om nom bacon.  BLTA's tomorrow, I think.  Since they don't sell fucking paczkis here, at least.

Penguin traffic.

• I think this is pretty much the reason you'd bribe politicians, isn't it?
• Dog vs. Turtle.
• Oshawott!
• I think the main point to remember is that some people are terrified that we are moments away from a sudden collapse of civilization, and only they will be able to rebuild society afterwards.  I don't really know of a good way to convince these people that they're deluded.  I suspect mentioning how well civilization seems to be doing would just reaffirm to them how bad things will be when it all falls apart.
• I like how the guy in the comments claiming this is a fake study is basing his point on "second hand smoking isn't bad, and in fact might be healthy."  That's totally why I cough when people are smoking nearby.  It's the way my body enhealthifies.

Huh. So again, we live in the future now.

And then I read MSDS's to make sure this wasn't going to be another one of those things that kills us all in ten years.

Random thought: Google Reader was Tumblr before Tumblr was Tumblr

Google Reader used to let you share items that would then go to all the friends you had set up to share things to.  Isn't this like 99% of what Tumblr is?  It seems like if Google hadn't been dumb and tried to do everything through Google+, they could have basically killed tumblr before it even launched.  I guess I don't see how they couldn't have used the combined power of blogger/reader/private posts like g+ to construct something that's more conducive to sharing.  Plus, adding in the RSS power of reader allows people to share things that aren't in the ecosystem as part of the ecosystem.  You could use the blogger backend to do the publishing, and automatically link the RSS feeds to your circle of friends.  Since you automatically do stuff for people, they're likely to stick with you, allowing you to use the set of shares/circles/connections as part of the fundamental goal of knowing everything about everything.

Instead, things like tonight's fuckup, and the blogger/picasa size limits, and removing the direct sharing features of reader suggest to me that google really doesn't have anyone working towards sane integration, from which a social network would probably naturally arise.  The other option is that each project is so balkanized that it's impossible to make them work together.

Sunday: Disaster in Burgertopia!

I had planned on cooking stuff I bought yesterday for dinner tonight, but then decided that I probably didn't buy enough scallops to do that, so I'll cook all of them tomorrow for dinner, but that left dinner today undecided.

Or lunch, since it's the weekend, and I tend to move to "one big afternoon meal" on weekends.  I thought maybe a burger would be nice, and since I wanted to get a few groceries, maybe Burgers on the Edge would work.

Except that they've closed.

Exactly.

That meant that I had to choose a different burger place, and made my foie gras craving jump up to infinity.  This led to the conclusion that I can buy my own foie gras, and so now I think I know what I'm making for myself later this week.

Also, did you know you could cheese tots now?  These were a bit overcooked, but still not warm enough, but I think this gets the cheese/not cheese ratio better than the fry option.

After eating, I discovered an interesting fact: Kilauea Fire Sauce + mint gum = cumin flavor.  Odd.

•  Ron Paul and his followers.
• 
• Steven Chu is apparently the coolest energy secretary ever.
• The story of Shylock Fox and Cassandra Cat.
• The post office actually isn't that bad.
• Google reader is all fucked up tonight.
• Everyone remembers that Orson Scott Card is a jackass, right?  If not, here's a funny reminder.

Saturday: sleepy

The final thing that was preventing this paper from being completely done resolved itself today, so I can finally get the damn thing submitted.  Not today, today is the day for sleeping late and eating sushi.

All three of these were on the belt waiting for me.  Unagi is never waiting for me.

Today I discovered that spicy unagi roll and spicy ebi fry roll are very tasty.  Again: magically appeared on the belt.  I probably should go at a regular eating time more often.

"Yeah, if you could just give us a ride to the gas station, our car broke down a few miles back.  What? No, we are totally not two bears attempting to steal your tank to go on hilarious tank-bear adventures.  That's crazy talk."

Battle goat is not nearly as effective as tank-bear.

• Oops.
• Julie sent me this earlier, and here's how it works.
• Oops.

Friday: grumble

Of the five things I wanted to get done today, I was able to accomplish two and two halves.  Not three. Two things sorted out, two other things half sorted out, fifth thing...I forgot what that thing was, but I think I didn't do it at all.

Today's boring thing to talk about that I don't have a link to attach my commentary to: drones.  Am I the only one who realizes that there's an easy argument that is likely what the administration's going to claim?  First, you take the authorization of war from this resolution.  Second, you claim that the vaguely defined "terrorists" are effectively a stateless army, and therefore, the definition of a state needs to be expanded to include such entities.  Then, you conclude that this allows you to launch drone strikes against a target anywhere, not because you're at war with the country that "owns" the land, but rather with the stateless collective that is both the target of the authorized war and the squatters on that land.  There. Using drones is in this case a better strategy than other tactics, as countries would likely be unhappy if you showed up unexpectedly with an army, even if you're going to claim that you're not there to fight them.  The due process aspect of attacking US citizens is more troublesome, as it's hard to claim arbitrarily that you can shoot missiles at people.  The best I can see is to come up with the sophism that you're shooting at everyone else around the citizen, and it's unfortunate but they blew up too.  Not terribly convincing.

Anyway, what do we have in the magic image pile?

Mont St. Michel.

"Wait...if I open my eyes, am I going to fall down?"

• Puppy!
• Delicious!
• Train!
• This article largely sums up my thought: Wikileaks had a good idea, but put the biggest douchebag out front as their spokesman.
• I spent time today writing a script to scrub a paper of comments before submission and copy figures into the preferred names.  Then I searched and discovered that someone else had already done that.  Oh well, I like mine better, as it supports plotone and plottwo, plus it confirms that it compiles correctly.

Thursday: You have to be fucking kidding me

First thing, I wake up today, get ready for work, and discover that the laundry I did last night never made the important transition from washer to dryer.  This left me with no clean shirts, and so had to work from home until the laundry could finish.

Second, I finally went to Target and bought more kleenex.  I'm trying to remember if I need anything else, and look right at the light bulbs and say to myself, "no, all my lights are working fine."  Return home, flip the switch for the living room light, and the damn thing burns out.  Fuck you, light bulbs.

Third, visualizing data with more than like six dimensions is not a fun way to spend the day.  And before you ask, no, there was no way to do PCA to reduce the dimensionality to something easier to work with.

This leopard kitten is cute. They're still called kittens when they're baby giant death cats, right?

Someone made a map of the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft.

• I already did this.  Here.
• Squirrel!
• Chicken and waffle chips.  Yes.
• "[...] a belief by the ayatollah that the sanctions are hurting the United States more than they are hurting Iran." Wow. That's stunningly out-of-touch.
• Look at this. It's cool.
• Yay the 1980s! Wait, no.

Wednesday: Dear crappy driver

1. Do not turn on your turn signal and slam on the brakes for no reason.
2. Just because it's raining, doesn't mean you need to drive 18 mph.
3. Swerving away from people in the other lane is a good way to crash.
4. Swerving into the other lane is a good way to kill everyone.
5. Stop whatever not-driving thing you were doing.  You are incapable of multitasking.
6. Yes, I did let you in when you decided you suddenly needed to get on H-1.  That's because you were half in my lane and were blocking your lane entirely.
7. I honked at you because you fucking stopped halfway through changing lanes and turning onto the onramp. WTF?
8. Good job going 25 on the highway, changing three lanes without bothering with a turn signal, and nearly killing that one guy.
9. Maybe consider never driving again, since you don't seem to have any fucking idea of how to do it.

Animals and snowmen.

No.

Wrong.

"Rar!"

Whatever blogger.  Just randomly put these three pictures where ever you fucking want.  It's not like there's a storyline or anything.

Snowcat. Whatever.

• Ham meter.
• Running refrigerator.
• Squirrel.
• The post office.  We've discussed this before.
• Newspaper comics haven't been relevant in like twenty years.  This shows why.