I care about the cornbread, though. I was hoping to have something here about a thing that I asserted was true but wanted to check, and then had to go to the grocery store twice this evening because I didn't buy the right thing the first time. This ate up a lot of time, and then Agent Carter was excellent again, which took up even more time.
Squirrel Girl is wonderful, and I wasn't going to post this just to again repeat that well established fact, but "The Plasmacabre." That is the best pun I have seen. It's just so beautiful.
Here's the one most important maple syrup fact: the USDA change to remove the distinction between Grade A and Grade B syrup was a horrible mistake, because it makes it more challenging to clearly identify the far superior Grade B syrup. That the American public was too dumb to realize that Grade B was better is not a sufficient excuse.
This looks tasty, so it's fairly likely I'm driving to Kailua this weekend.
Fuck you, Tony Scalia. Just die already, so someone who isn't full of shit can interpret the law.
It's unfortunate that even with this data showing that "cut taxes and magically everything is fixed" simply doesn't work, dumb people are still going to claim that it's the only solution to everything.
First though, there's this Rick and Morty show. Rick's a crazy scientist, and Morty is his grandson who ends up getting dragged on impossible adventures. Great stuff. This week's episode they were abducted by aliens and put into a simulation world for reasons. However, it's not a good simulation, and Rick points out obvious problems:
Like the guy putting a bun between two hot dogs, and the old lady walking her cat.
Morty's all "maybe people are just weird, and that old lady is straight up proper crazy." So Rick has to pull out the big guns:
Morty acknowledges that poptarts probably wouldn't live in a toaster, as that doesn't make much sense.
Nor would they need to get in their car and go to work.
Rick points out the actual flaw in things: people don't drive around in cars that look like their house, but are smaller and have wheels. Cars and houses are not the same shape, so this is just complete nonsense.
Yes, they had to be naked there, due to weird alien reasons.
The poptarts show up later, as well.
Ok, statistics again. The problem is that I saw this article today, which basically complains that "no one really means to use standard deviation, as people intrinsically want to use the mean absolute deviation" which is, of course, complete bullshit.
First, no one would ever do mean absolute deviation in their head. Here are some numbers: {-1 2 3 -5 1 400}. If you had to guess another number that would belong to this set, you're going to guess like "dunno, zero maybe?" You know that 400 is probably bullshit, so you cut it out. People don't do real means when they filter data. It's some combination of a mode and median. Choose a number that doesn't seem crazy.
Second, this mean absolute deviation tells you about where the 50% point falls. Why that point? The standard deviation is more inclusive, as it tells you that most (Q(1) = 68.change%) samples are closer to the central value.
Third, all that obvious shit about moments analysis.
Anyway, time for plots. These are the same idea as the ones from the previous post, just remade with more samples and different stats. The horizontal lines are the true uncontaminated distribution sigma and the true fully contaminated sigma (sigma_uniform = sqrt((b - a)^2 / 12), because math). First thing to note: Actual sigma cleanly switches from the two extremes, as it really should. Gaussian fits are best, but IQD and MAD are comparable up to the 50% contamination point. MeanAD doesn't seem particularly good. The full contamination end is biased, as I'm using a parametric model (that it's a Gaussian distribution).
Biased samples. This nicely shows that IQD fails before MAD, and that Gaussian fits are reasonable up to 60% contamination. MeanAD is again off kind of doing its own thing. Median >>> mean for outlier rejection.
I don't really think planetary science is that important, but I'm somewhat biased. In any case, government funding of science really should be about double what it is now, where my personal biases about the priority of sciences wouldn't matter because everyone would have funding.
No. Apple in left hand, paring knife in right. Make a thumbs up with your right hand, holding the knife with your fingers and the blade facing your thumb. Start on the top of the apple, and make a small cut by holding your thumb on the apple, and then flex your fingers "closed" to draw the knife toward your thumb. Repeat this while spinning the apple until the peel is removed. I thought I'd found some citation that the way the brain controls hands makes this safer than forward cutting, but I can't find it now, and don't know enough neurology to prove it. In any case, I've never cut myself doing this.
The answer: because I don't have a menu plan and nothing sounds good. :-/ I probably should have just picked up something on the way home. I have bagels. Let's eat a bagel.
Ok, Operation BagelTown didn't go off quite as easily as I thought. Given that it took an hour. On the plus side, I started some laundry, so I'll have clothes for tomorrow. Always a good thing.
FFTs and me made friends today, even though I'm still not totally happy with the results that came out. It's hard to actually have to think about this crap in the transformed space, as my usual treatment is convolution or something like that where I'm just using the FFT to make a hard problem a multiplication. Then reverse transform, and you just cheated at math. It's like multiplying numbers by adding their logarithm, that kind of cheat.
Wonderful.
Ok, let's look at "Missiler" here. A) Stupid name. He "missiles" I guess? I was unaware we'd verbed that word. B) I'm not really seeing any missiles anywhere on his body. Maybe those two tubes on the chest that look like tennis ball tubes? C) Maybe that rocket in the background just shot out of his left shoulder, perspective kind of works. If so though, how useful is it to shoot a missile nearly straight up, but also kind of backwards to where you came from. I think Missiler is going to have to answer some friendly-fire charges after Space War is over. D) How does he even walk? No knees, and it doesn't look like he has any ankle level articulation. Does he just scrape his foot up to some angle, tip over to fall down on it, and then straighten back up while scraping the other one to match? That things going to need new feet like every step. E) I'm pretty sure the guy on the car is just pointing at it while shouting, "Holy Shit! That is by far the ugliest and most useless robot ever. Back up and ram it and see if we can knock it on it's back! I bet it'd be like a turtle!"
Missiler lives in a world of constant useless annoyance. Those hands make it look like he was designed to hold trays, possibly as a butler. But now, here he is, in the middle of Space War, trying to figure out exactly how he's supposed to missile.
Hopefully this one won't be as long as the last caption. Bears. Winged Bears. Winged Bears with Laser Eyes. Look in the background. Smoke. Clearly these WBwLEs have fucked somebody up already. I will now simply point out that bears are carnivores, and have forward facing eyes to gain the benefit of stereopsis. Since the lasers nicely point out where each eye is located, we can finally classify these as Winged Bears with Laser Derpy Eyes.
Down on his luck squirrel has to go dumpster diving for food. :(
I've read at least one of this guy's papers in the past, and I didn't buy it then. A) his "fit" is pretty crappy. B) If the universe has a preferred axis, it's unlikely to exactly line up with RA. C) isn't the Sloan footprint that spidery thing that covers the north galactic cap pretty well, with spider arms down through the plane? That doesn't seem like the best test sample in that case. D) Finally, he "eliminates edge on spirals from consideration"? Really? If your theory is rotation direction A that way, and opposite rotation direction -A the other way, then somewhere in the middle you should see mostly flat things, don't you think? Otherwise it's not really a "single universal axis" or whatever he's calling it. Or, you know, spectral follow up to get line-of-sight velocity curves?
I'm tired of the olympics already. It's just a money grab where they build up athletes hopes while filling their pockets with money, leaving the host city worse off afterwards.
Last year, I did something silly with google. This year, I wrote a script to steal the data for me, so I didn't have to keep searching and copying. Sorry, google. It was fast, and I'm sure you didn't get hurt in the process. So what does it look like this year?
Same basic shape, same drop at 60 o's, similar 60-100 peak values. Pretty much the same kind of trends. One difference is that there's more weight in the tail this year, which is reasonable. The internet has had a year to make pages with google spelled incorrectly. Like this. goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle
When I think vegetables, I think frozen. When I think of frozen vegetables, I think of machines and industrial lubricants. Well, no, not really, but that's my best theory to explain this ad. The alternate theory states that Shell wanted people to know that you could get really high off of industrial lubricants, to the point where your eyes won't close and you imagine vegetables growing from the countertops.
It gives you all the ease of ordering pizza without having to deal with the bother of actually talking to someone to order. It makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one who occasionally gets cravings for Pizza Hut. I didn't get their box deal, largely because the random sales they had online were a better deal. I didn't take any pictures, but I still have piles of pizza and breadsticks left, so maybe tomorrow. Instead, have a picture of how long space travel would take in cool retro-style spaceships (you'll probably need to clicky-pop):
Today's links will either be to an animal or in quote form.
Lunch today was at Kurukuru sushi, which I wasn't super happy with last time. Today was better than that time, possibly because it wasn't as busy. They still have the "you have to order all the good stuff, because the conveyor belt is full of crap" problem.
Well, that and shrimp tempura. Om nom nom.
Also whatever the fuck this thing is. I know the picture's super blurry, so I'll describe it: There's a pile of fried rice (with tiny american flag), with a half hotdog octopus, a block of some other rice/grain something, and a block of lotus root (I think?), and a tiny bottle of milk in a plastic cup.
Here it goes again sixteen minutes later in an even blurrier picture.
Here's another problem of ordering from a menu at the conveyor belt sushi place: if you see something that looks good (that Jackson Pollack piece there. I have no clue what it was, but it had some fish, seems to have been fried, and came dressed with spicy mayo and katsu sauce(?). It was yummy. Anyway...), that's invariably the moment that everything you've ordered shows up (the ahi and unagi). These were very good, with the ahi cut super thick, and the unagi toasty warm. Mmm.
I didn't take a picture of it, but I also ordered chicken karaage before calling it a meal. Unfortunately I then ate it too fast, and ended up burning my tongue. I was eating fast because it was getting close to the beginning of the movie that was the reason I was out and about today:
The reissue of Ghostbusters was this week, and I looked online earlier in the week to see where it was playing. It seems to only be playing at the theater that's hard to park at, so instead I decided to check the listings at the theater in the mall by WF. My actual though: "The Man Who Fell to Earth? I'm absolutely sure no one remade that. Is that a reissue too?"
Yes it is. Given that most movies that are advertised now look like shit, I think it's probably a good idea to buy tickets when they just give up and re-release good movies from the past. I've not seen it before, but it seemed like a good idea. Pretty depressing story, but definitely worth seeing. There were only about six people in the theater, and all of them were much older than me.
After the movie, it was time to get groceries. I stopped by Barnes and Noble to see if I could find a second book to take with me on the flight this week.
Well, that's certainly too big to read on a plane. I guess I'll have to stick with only one book.
Today's dinner:
Pan roasted romaine salad with scallops in onion sauce.
The salad is pretty simple. Slice in half, wash, heat cast iron skillet to 10000 degrees, drizzle olive oil on the lettuce, roll it around to coat evenly-ish, add lots of pepper, put in the pan, listen to sizzle, roll it around a few times, remove and plate. Top with some sprouts you bought today because they looked cool, a chopped roma tomato, and some macadamia nuts (also looked cool).
The scallops weren't too hard either. Add a gob of butter to a pan, add sliced maui onion, and let cook until they're soft. Scoot them to one side and add the scallops. Let them sear while you squirt some garlic paste (from the tube that never runs out) over the onions. When the scallops look mostly finished (although I used what is apparently the main rule of seafood: "You're going to cook it too long, so it's done before you think it's done. Even when you think you're pulling it fast enough, it's probably still too long."), add vermouth to deglaze, and then another bit of butter because, hey, why not? Pull scallops to plate, crank the heat and reduce the vermouth/butter/onion/garlic mixture to a glaze/sauce. Pour over the top of the salad.
Also warm a chunk of bread in the oven, and then cram a bit of mushroom brie inside.
Slice the lettuce and scallops, and then take a picture that the camera decides has a different orientation than you are expecting.
The scallops were cooked just right, but didn't pick up much flavor from the sauce. I kind of expected this, since they have really dense flesh. Still, the sauce was also designed to be a dressing for the salad, and that worked pretty well. The tomatoes had a good acidic balance to the fatty rich sauce. The macadamia nuts added nothing, except deliciousness.
I think the plan for this week is going to be:
Saturday: See above.
Sunday: Something similar. I bought some shrimp, so I think the plan is to fry them, and have them in a salad form.
Monday: Same as sunday (I got lots of shrimp).
Tuesday: Something with chicken. I bought a big breast, so I think I'm going to either split it, or cook something and save half for
Wednesday: I did get prosciutto, so I could do a saltimbocca thing. Maybe use the brie to make a sauce of some sort? I don't know, I have some time to think it through.
Thursday: Quiznos, because they have one in the airport.
Friday: Austin. All of it. Or, pending me not finishing my "giant monster formula," something smaller than a city.
Hurricane Irene was such a jerk that it went out of its way to hit Pakistan, then came back to beat up the east coast, and is about to take a jump over to beat up Russia.
Also, here's a gif of Natalie Portman crying, which she apparently does a lot more than I notice:
Yes, there's a cat in there too. I don't know. The internet makes silly things. I guess we can say "hi" when it flashes on screen.
Read yesterday's post for details. One thing I forgot to mention is that due to the oil I put in the pan before I baked the stromboli, the bottom crust was all fried and crispy and tasty. It's less so the second day due to getting soggy, but most of the flavor is still there.
The main point of today's post is a commentary on this news story Julie sent me. It's depressing, because that place had what I think was the best bbq I've ever had. It had a bit of a shady feeling to it, being in a kind of run-down feeling residential neighborhood, but all of that vanished when you started eating the deliciousness.
Still, the deliciousness is also not the point.
The point is this: "Undercover officers posing as meat thieves approached the proprietors and, police allege, sold the restaurants what the officers claimed was stolen meat."
What?
Now, I'm not a criminal mastermind or anything, and I certainly don't know where the diamonds are. But, hypothetically, if someone approached me, and told me that they had brought me a great deal on some stolen something, I'm not interested. It doesn't matter what the something is, if you come to me, and tell me that you have stolen product for sale, I don't want it. There is a very simple reason behind this: you're a cop. Proper criminals don't advertise that they have stolen merchandise, they suggest that they have suddenly become overstocked on something, and were wondering if you might be interested in some bargains. See how that works? No one says anything about a crime being committed, and everyone walks away happy.
In any case, if you're already buying stolen meat (or whatever), why would you not stick with your current stolen meat vendor? You have an established relationship, and have developed some level of trust. If your SMV tells you he's out of town for a while, and his cousin Timmy is going to be taking over deliveries, you should meet Timmy along with your SMV. This establishes Timmy as being vouched for by the SMV, so you know if Timmy starts selling you bad products, you know that you can take this matter up with the SMV. Then it's not your problem, it's his problem.
This same principle applies to lots of other things. Random guy offers you a great deal on some sweet drugs? Cop. Random girl in ugly plastic platform shoes asking if you're looking for some company? Vice cop. If you're looking to break a law, you are in a market, and it's your obligation to go searching for a vendor. When you want pizza, do you sit at home hoping that the Pizza Hut people will knock on your door and offer you some fresh pizza they just happened to bring by? No, you go to them, and ask them for the pizza. Similarly, if you want to get something in a less-than-legal manner, you go to where that kind of deal is happening, and identify a potential retailer. They shouldn't be that hard to find. Then, you be as vague as possible, because as far as the PR knows, you're probably a cop.
Also, all of this is invalid for the case of the Ice Cream Truck. Obviously it's always acceptable to buy ice cream whenever it's available. I mean, duh.
I got so involved randomly linking things in the last post that I forgot to mention how stupid it is that pictures uploaded to Google+ can't be used in blogger, despite the fact that I can go to picasa and see them all right next to each other. Isn't there a way to super-share pictures in Google+ so that other Google Googles can Google them with their Googles?
Ok, so that last sentence made me think of the word Google. That led me to thinking about power laws. That led to:
Yes. Yes it is. A lot of the higher number searches fall into two categories: the worst typo-squatters ever and youtube video comments/forum posts where someone is being a dick about suggesting someone search the internet to answer a question. My original plan was to stop searching at 100-o's, since that seemed to be the appropriate number. However, since I was still getting O(log10(R)) ~ 2, I figured I would keep going until it reached zero results. That happened, but it turns out to be a special case. When you have a search that includes a 125-character word, Google assumes you're just fucking with it and refuses to do the search.
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.
