Monday, March 31, 2014

Monday: One of those days

Except the poorly illuminated guy is an amorphous aggregate of non-tangible things.

  • Serious things.
  • Food things.
    • This calzone.
    • This burger.
    • This curry.
    • These dummies.
    • Fuck you, Vermont.  Is this why I can't find grade B anywhere?  I don't want to use a spectrum of adjectives just because you're too shit at educating people that grade B is better than grade A.  If you want to use a range, define an opacity number or something, so I can buy an 80% syrup instead of having to deal with the crappy 40%.  You know what I've done since I couldn't find grade B syrup anywhere, Vermont?  I buy local honey instead.  You've lost a bunch of sales to insects.
  • Animal things.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Sunday: Weekends mean finishing reading the internet at 7pm

I think I probably need to cut down on the number of things that I read.  I probably should drop some of the comics I don't read anymore, and do the same with the handful of blogs that never seem to have anything useful or interesting.  It would also help if I could come up with some way to remove all the duplicates from various tumblr things.  The built in tt-rss duplicate filter seems to generally not work, and the alternate plugin seems to be broken by design (postgres only, works only on the title?).  I could probably write one myself, but, you know, lazy.

I went with "let's just do another Buffalo food" for late lunch today.

  • Things that are basically awful.
  • Things that involve animals.
    • Bears.  You may see these images again here.  Yoink.
    • Penguins.
    • Cats.  I nearly choked to death while reading this comic on my phone while eating that burger.
  • Things that are pretty cool.
    • The reviews aren't super great, mostly complaining that you have to put it together and the instructions aren't in english.  However, the internet has the instructions, and on amazon it's only like $10.  I think I know what's filling the cart sufficiently to get me free shipping next time.  My main concern is that I live in the middle of a city and basically have no rooms that are dark ever.
    • I did not know this, but Iris is still the best companion since Misty.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Saturday: Lazy Day

First up, I had to defeat the dreaded lunch.  I eventually came to the conclusion that wings were the right choice.  That meant going back to Wings and Things.  Since the main issue last time was the wing format, I decided that it would be a good idea to come prepared.

Note the knife I brought from home.
This was definitely a better solution than trying to dismember the wings by hand.  It does have the unfortunate side effect that you have to carry a knife wrapped in a paper towel home.  That doesn't feel like you're trying to find a place to drop the murder weapon.  Not at all.

My issues this time weren't the absolute worst.  The fries could have spent more time in the fryer.  They weren't as crispy as previous batches.  They also still have the issue that the hot sauce is really more of a medium.  Still, not the worst lunch ever.

Then after failing to get pumpernickel, then finding pumpernickel elsewhere, I decided it was time to work through the DVR.  On top of the queue?  Finishing up Pokemon Black and White.  I'd gotten through the badges, and the tournament, and the Team Plasma arc.  This mainly left the filler episodes at the end of the season.  As is the usual case, Pokemon filler episodes are really better than every other kind of episode, because they just dump a bunch of one-off shit into the episode, and call it a day.  For example, there's an episode where Oshawott becomes King of the Oshawotts in a contest, and episode where a Pokemon pretends to be a Nurse Joy and an Audino, and keeps switching between the two illusions when TT ask for the other one (I am sad I didn't gif that), and one where everyone in town gets mind controlled by alien Pokemon.  Did any of that do anything or mean anything?  Nope.  Just some random shit that happens to Ash and Team Twerp.  Yes, Ash comes to town, and you have a ~1/1000 chance of being mind controlled along with the entire rest of town.  He lives an interesting life.

There was also an episode where Cilan's brothers have fucked shit up, and they need him to beat a challenger or else they lose their gym.  This means he has to fight an Abomasnow, and I kept hearing it as Obama-snow.

Unfortunately, end of seasons mean the end of the travelling companions, which is unfortunate, because I think Iris and Cilan have been the best companions since Misty and Brock.  From their last episode together, I present, "Team Twerp is Dumb."

I mean, this is literally the worst disguise that fooled them.  "What? How did that fool anyone?" James walked up dressed as another character and asked to see everyone's Pokeballs.  Just after "totally all of Team Rocket" landed.

And, as a counterpoint, "Team Rocket is Dumb."
I think this had to be small to not have the filesize be huge.  Basically, TR attacks (it pauses on their balloon) Ash at Professor Oak's, just as he's released all the Pokemon from this season so they can live with Oak.  He just says, "Ok, everybody, just do, like, whatever, you know?  There are like a dozen of you, and you've all done this before."  It pauses on the explosion too, just because that seemed fitting.
And now I'm caught up to where I wasn't when I watched the episodes I'm watching now from XY.  The answer is Not-Misty's mom.


  • There really is no benefit for consumers in the Comcast/TWC merger.
  • I saw this episode today, so I'm again linking to this gross looking burger.  They don't deep fry the outside bun burgers.  So, they're not even consistent with the clear instructions.
  • Yes, Darmok is really the shittiest episode of TNG.
  • I disagree with this.  Sure, no one else likes Tree Trunks, fine.  That explains why those are so low.  Ditto Slime Princess.  But Box Prince?  That gets a 6.3?  WTF?  The episode is just Finn projecting onto a bunch of cats.  Who doesn't love that?

Friday, March 28, 2014

Friday: Let's pretend I had a good title here.

Oops.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Thursday: Have I mentioned how delightful Rick and Morty is?

Yes.  Yes I have.  Doesn't matter.  This week's episode was even better than the pop-tart people.  Here's a detailed screenshot summary of why.  The B-story was dumb.  I'm also dropping the conclusion-y bit of this story, because it's not necessary.

Rick: "So...what are you, the devil?"

The Devil: "Here, take this microscope, it'll show you secrets you can't imagine, you science-jerk!"

Rick: "Hey, Morty.  Shut up, I'm about to go fuck up the Devil's shit."

Rick: "Yep.  Fucking Devil tried to make me dumb.  Time to fuck his shit up."

Rick: "Yep, this shit makes you pretty, but you go blind, because you're buying from the Devil.  Also: I just made this cursed item scanner."

Lady: "I mean, it's all free right?" The Devil: "Yes, but you know they're all cursed right? What are you going to do with them?"

Lady: "I'm going to get them uncursed by that guy on TV!"

The guy on TV is Rick.

Rick: "I'm advertising about how I'm uncursing all the shit from the Devil's store!  It costs money, but that's because we use money in the modern world, not fucking curses.  Ya jerk."

The Devil: "Wait...First and Main?"

Wait for it.

Directly across the street.

Rick: "Fuck you so much!"

People: "I want to uncurse cursed things to get the benefit without the curse!"

And then the Devil hangs himself.

Employee: "I have some forms for you."


Rick: "I'm bored now, everybody get out."



  • I'd really like to see this plot done again for Hawaii, but using the mauka/makai/ewa/diamond head direction system.  I suspect it'd be far more directed than the current system.  It's not so much that Hawaii has lots of curvy suburb roads (although there are lots of curvy roads), but more so that the terrain shapes how the roads have to work.
  • Misty.
  • I had to do a calculation for someone in undergrad to prove that even if there was an alignment of planets, the gravitational force would be tiny compared to that of the sun.
  • I really wanted a calzone today.
  • I didn't even know these islands existed.
And just as a sidenote, I'm watching the Daily Show while doing links, and Nate Silver is on, and he's suggesting that the thing I linked to yesterday was some sort of a joke analysis?  If you're running a serious journalistic endeavour, you probably shouldn't put up joke stories.  I've talked about this before.

I mean, at least you could put a tag on it, so it's obvious you're failing at humor.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

I accuse Mr. Green of committing the crime in the Ballroom with the Lead Pipe!

Or, more to the actual topic of this post, I accuse old people of opposing progress with their not dying.

Confused yet?

So I came across something today that pointed me to this survey of gay marriage polling tracks over time.  I then noticed that this page also includes historical trends for interracial marriage as well.

My obvious question to myself was, "how much of that trend can you explain simply by assuming things are improving because old people die?"

That led to a search for detailed cohort data, because I need to know when people are dying.  Google google google, and I find this page, which claims the image is from the Census people, although they've since rearranged their webpage so the link doesn't work anymore.  I'm accepting that, because who lies about cohort data?  Crazy statisticians, I guess.

Here's the cohort image, copied in case that link disappears too.

I digitized that image, and then write a perl script to calculate the fraction of the population on a given date that were born before a certain year.  This number subtracted from 100 gives the fraction born after that date.  What does that look like?

Due to the five-year blocking of the cohorts, there's a stair-step effect.  Interpolate a best fit line through that data, basically through the midpoints of each step.

Huh.  That worked far better than I expected.  Basically, ignoring all other factors, you can pretty much explain the entire trend if you just assume that everyone born after 1960 (who would have been kids during the Civil Rights Movement) is cool with interracial marriage, and that everyone born after 1980 (I'm going to use the Simpsons as my cultural shift here, because I don't want to go with "people my age") is cool with gay marriage.


Wednesday: Prince Kuhio Day

This Prince Kuhio.  He was a prince of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and after the overthrow, because the territorial delegate to the US Congress.  Because of him, I get the day off.

Which means I can watch random daytime TV, and discover the greatest pun ever in an episode of Wordgirl on PBS.  The "Garfunkel Gallery Art Auction."

But before that, I made my own patty melt.  I used my perfect recipe, and achieved another wonderful result.   I did switch from the 10 inch skillet for the bread to the 12 inch one.  This gave me far more area to play with, so I didn't have to worry about the pan being as crowded.

Blurry side one!
Blurry side two!  The pale part is where the bread buckles up away from the pan.
Blurry cut shot!
Mostly in focus pic with the salt and pepper chips, and the bottom of a bottle of my secret horde of Mexican Coke.  Which I was going to link back to, but I guess I never wrote about it.  It's this, and I don't understand why this isn't a standard item.






Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Tuesday: This isn't that great of a photo.

It was either this one with the flash firing and messing things up or one of the two super blurry ones.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Japan

They're setting the world record for the longest chain of Pocky/Pretz passes.

Monday: Mondays. It's always fucking mondays.

Wake up to email for a problem that I have to fix.  Early telecon.  Do work stuffs.  Sketch bunny during part of the meeting that's about other people's stuff.  Leave early because I thought the pharmacy was open until 2 on Saturday, but no, it closes at noon, and it closes at 5 during the week, because it's inconvenient.  Then, because the drugs have to be kept cold, I have to go home and drop them off before I can go back out to get groceries.

And the worst thing?  I forgot to take a picture of that bunny sketch, so I don't have anything to post here.

Except post the reference picture, so I don't have to keep that tab open for a day.

  • You know what companies could do?  They could put together consumer oriented news posts, and post them on their own corporate computer systems, and set up some kind of "RSS feed" that would allow people to subscribe to those updates, and then funnel them back to the corporate computers, keeping that information localized, and not give that data to someone else.
  • Really?  I've not been to the Louvre, but this is just terrible museum-ing.  There are way too many people in this gallery.  What if there's a fire?  How do you keep that climate controlled?  I thought museums had capacity ratings, where they'd just not let you in.  Like they do at the Smithsonians.
  • This would have made LAX less of a hellhole.
  • I have also been disappointed with this new 538.  There's the climate thing, I find their analysis of this basketball thing kind of an abdication in that they use the "average other experts" approach as a basis,  the economics stories seem painfully overwritten, etc.  Plus: Ross Douthat is a fucking idiot.
  • More people should be honest like this.  High school is basically just bullshit 90% of the time, so if something seems like a lot of work, you can probably just make it up and be fine.  Especially for a "interview someone who does the job you want" bullshit.  Are you going to be a journalist, where writing interview questions would be helpful?  Probably not.  Google it, slap a name on it, turn it in.  Spend the time you've saved doing math and reading Shakespeare.
  • Just keep in mind that you'll probably enjoy it more if you don't read it too, too closely.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Sunday: Sadness and disappointment

Monday I failed at getting a patty melt.  I tried again today.  This was a mistake.

Wailana Coffee House looks like it probably did thirty years ago.  There's definitely a diner feel to it.

Ok, it's on proper rye bread, and that's a ton of fries.  They were super fresh, and were right out of the fryer.

Wait, what's that?
Here's all the things wrong with this patty melt:

  1. No swiss, and instead of american, they used cheddar.  That's too harsh of a cheese.
  2. Raw onion bits.  "Hot dog onions" in the onion classification I use in my head.  Not that I put them on hot dogs, because that's stupid.  You don't eat raw onions.  The onions in a patty melt should be soft and sweet, not harsh and noxious.
  3. Really crappy meat.  I asked for medium, and that's basically what this is, but it was mushy.  It got to the point at the end (which I didn't finish), that the burger just felt like a wet sponge.  That's gross.
So basically, this is a complete mess, with the only good thing being the rye with caraway seeds.  Unfortunately, that anise-y edge is completely knocked out by the onions and the cheese.  This was awful, and is definitely stricken from the list of places that exist and should be visited.

Wednesday's a holiday, so maybe I'll just make my own patty melt.  Correctly.  Like it should be.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Saturday: Damn it, Cilan, just two episodes you were saying that battling on a ship was a bad idea, and now you're all "it's so wonderful to battle in the ocean breeze." Make up your damn mind.

Admittedly, Iris did have her fucking Excadrill drill through the first ship.  Still, buy some consistency.  Also, today may have been the day I binge watch a lot of Pokemon.

I decided to Nico's for lunch today:
Yes.  I do basically just get the same thing.
And this happened while I was eating:

"Toot toot! I'm a barge being pushed by my friend the tugboat!"
And then I took lots of pictures of the port and made them into big mosaics because I really like infrastructure.

This is just a crop of the next one.  Get ready for surprise math!
One thing I noticed was that the left ship (the Kala'enalu) was sitting about three feet lower in the water than the right ship (the Ho'omaka Hou).  It's probably not clear in this super cropped and squished blog version, but the K has the water at the 8' line, and the H is at the 5' line.  From their description pages, we know that they're 340' long and 90' wide.  This translates to a displacement of 91800 cubic feet of water, which translates to those containers on the K weighing 5.7268e+06 pounds.

It's good that this has been squished so much, so it's harder to notice the defect that's glaringly obvious when you look at a reasonable size.

Another from the end of the pier, so I could get all the cranes on Sand Island.


  • I can't think of any reason that you'd want to keep $5e6 sitting at home.  When do you ever need to pay that much in cash?  Bribes?  You can't pick up the cash on the way to the payout?
  • Why would you ever abandon this place?  "Oh, I'm sorry, that place is just too beautiful, let's ignore it for seven decades."
  • So.  This bird.  I was really surprised when this showed up in my rss today, because I had planned to draw one of those yesterday.  It's a Red-Whiskered Bulbul, which I discovered after google searching yesterday.  "When did you start caring about birds?"  I was sitting at my desk at work, and one of these just flew up to the window next to me, and started looking at himself in the reflection.  I tried to get my phone out in time to take a picture, but he flew away before I could.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Friday: Huh.

I discovered this evening that my parking lot neighbor died this week in a random accident.  I'd noticed that her car wasn't gone when it usually is in the evening, but I figured that maybe she was on vacation or something.  That's definitely not something you expect to learn out of the blue.  It was good to have met you occasionally over the years, Ms. Parking Lot Neighbor.

Here's a random bear.

  • Animals.
  • Things that aren't important.
    • Vampires.
    • Toilet paper.  The weird thing about travelling to other countries is that you discover that other countries have weird toilet paper shapes.  It tends to be longer and narrower.  It's like they saw the letter/A4 differences, and said, "Yeah, let's do that to everything."
    • Star Trek toys posed.
  • Things that are rather important, but kind of long to read.
    • This is an important point on H-1B visas.  Or, alternatively, we could have proper unions for things like this.  It's basically the same issue.
    • Venezuela.  You can kind of trace exactly how every single thing the government has done has made the situation worse.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Thursday: Today I actually solved both of the major problems at work.

They're not complete solutions, but they are at least sufficient that I can actually make some progress, and work on math and science instead of why computers are absolute dicks most of the time. Part of my notes from today:

Referencing this scene, once again.
Future reference for myself: pixelize at 75 pixels, then gaussian blur at 75 pixels.  I should probably do it after the resize, but whatever.  Pixelize destroys data smaller than the pixel width (approximately).

Today's links are largely Pokemon related.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Wednesday: Sure, let's do that one.

I'm pretty sure this picture is the very definition of "what the absolute fuck?"


  1. So those are giant dudes riding giant horses, right? Because they're going behind hills, but they're the same size as the hills.
  2. Horse number two has terrible perspective, so it looks like it's just sitting down in the middle of the road.
  3. There's no way they're going to fit into that city, because it's like maybe three hills away, right?  In any case, none of the people there are hill sized.
  4. This is number four, and I haven't even gotten to the demons.
  5. Is that one demon a horse dentist?  Do horses even have dentists?
  6. Fishy feet demon is totally all "Look at me! I can lift the front of a giant horse!"
  7. Demon three is a cat.  "Oh! Am I sitting on your face?  I didn't notice!"
  8. That last demon is just "Whatever, I'm going to swing around here, like that's normal in any way."
  9. Does that guy's sleeve have like an escape hatch so he can eject his arm from it?
  10. Dude 2's neck is broken.  That head is spun 135 degrees from facing forward.
  11. The black horse kind of looks like a duck head if you just glance quickly.
  12. I bet that tiny castle on the hill is really pissed that this huge city set up right next door.
  13. And finally, I guess demons and giants are enemies?  Is there like a lesson here?  "If you're lucky, next time giants come to invade your city, you might also be attacked by demons, but don't worry, you want that, because demons and giants hate each other more than anything else."
Links.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

wow

so 2048

Tuesday: Supercomputing is Superhard.

Except that fucking "mkdir" sucks up like 15-45 minutes, and that causes the control robot to shut everything down because I only asked for a 60 minute allocation.

"Seriously, WTF, Dave?"

  • I think one big difference between this and the Iraq war thing is that instead of trying to be sneaky and do it all hidden like, the US just flat out said, "we're going to go fuck shit up, brb."  Plus, there's at least the cover story of "bringing democracy."
  • Hey annoying anti-smoking commercials! You don't need to be so loud and annoying. Just FYI.
  • Misty.
  • Remember that 2048 game from a few days ago?  Here's Doge2048.  My high here is 15706.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Monday: St. Patrick's Day

I had the idea at the end of the day today to go out, and get a special SPD dinner.  Not some boring "corned beef and cabbage" junk though.  Using the power of puns, I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to get a patty melt.

Except patty melts are nearly extinct in the modern world, due to apathy and inaction.  My original thought was to go to IHOP.  Except IHOP no longer sells them, according to their menu.  However, Wailana Coffee House next door sells them, so I figured I'd try there.  I was about to turn the corner to park, when I noticed that they had a line out the front door.  So, nope.  There's this place, but it's way the hell over in Pearl City.

Instead of the glory of the best sandwich ever, I ended up with sadness and disappointment for dinner.

Even this monkey is confused that patty melts aren't everywhere.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Sunday: Wait, when did I buy a black tshirt?

I forgot to do laundry last night, so I had to look through older shirts to find one to wear, and I found this one, but it's black, and I don't ever remember buying it.  Weird.

Then I didn't know what I wanted for dinner, blah blah blah, so I decided I wanted Mexican.

Rainbow again.

Same as always.

Unrelated screencap from a youtube video I watched last night.  "Tokyo Tower: Your City Landmarks Suck."