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.

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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.

Yes

Because if I'm looking for grocery stores in Honolulu, I'm also certain to be wondering about grocery stores in New York City.

Still no animals

via

Cynical political theory

While waiting for some test code to run today, I ran across this editorial about the right-ward shift in the Republican party.  The bit that struck me was the note at the end about a paper (which I wasn't able to actually read since it looks to be stuck behind a paywall that I don't seem to have access to) that notes that economic recessions tend to lead to an increased vote for right-wing political parties.

This would be easy to ignore, if it weren't for the fact that conservative economic policy is widely considered by most sane and honest economists as a ploy to divert wealth to the already-wealthy benefactors of the conservative movement.  The past decade has largely shown that these policies do not work to the benefit of regular people, create "jobless recoveries," and basically fuck over the fiscal well-being of the country.

Now, given these two points, it would be possible to create a very cynical reason why these discredited economic policies have stuck around: not only do you enrich your cronies, but you trash the economy enough to prompt the rightward shift in the political climate.  This is certainly a short- to moderate- term solution, as in the long run, you loot too much out of the working class to favor a wealthy elite, which could cause economic collapse.  One would expect this to be a deterrant, but I would offer the recent Goldman-Sachs/Wall Street debacle as an example of people completely ignoring a catastrophic long-term effect for short-term gain.

In any case, it struck me as an interesting point to consider.

Slow down!

You're driving like a maniac! Are you trying to kill us?

Oh, Batman

What are you doing, Wozniak?

You don't even know Gray Powell!

Now you can sing along

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

while pretending you're devouing storm troopers that have strayed too far from base.

Found a bit too late

to help Julie with her talk.

What are you doing, dog?

You're not even a....

...

Ok.

You get a pass because that's just super cute.

Fuck you, bear!

I spent hours on that, and you lumber over and smash it five minutes later!

Fuck you, bear!

You're not even real!

Fuck you, bear!

Just because you don't like the art, doesn't mean you can just destroy it!

What are you doing, corgi?

You're not a businessman! You don't even have a business plan!

Could it be?

I've been spending this weekend reorganizing and cleaning my apartment up.  This was started by the purchase of a cheap flatpack bookshelf ($30, able to accommodate something like 150 books), which allowed me to move almost all of the books that were piled up off the floor.  I then spent this afternoon rewiring my surround sound system, so that it would actually work correctly (turns out the problem was bad speaker wires). Now I'll be able to watch DVDs and play video games again, something I haven't done since moving in. Yes, I'm lazy.

I felt that the way to celebrate this weekend of accomplishment would be to go out and get one of those death sandwiches they're selling at KFC. I googled up the location of the easiest to reach KFC, and set off on the journey. However, less than a block away from my destination, I saw something that I had believed to be non-existent in Hawaii.

A stand alone Little Caesars.

All of the other ones that I've seen before have been in K-marts.  There are no nearby or convenient K-marts to my house.  I had therefore resigned myself to never getting a Hot'N'Ready again.

I immediately changed plans, and stopped off at this newly created Caesars.  I bought my HNR, plus the crazy bread, only being a little dissappointed that Hawaiian HNRs are mediums instead of larges, and cost $5.50 in any case.  It tastes exactly the same, though, which is really the important part.

I hope that this is a sign that some of the other places I miss from Michigan may show up here in the pacific soon. I can't imagine how someplace like Boston Market wouldn't make a killing here.

Fuck you, trombone player

Fuck your shitty ass instrument, too.

Ouch

PASSENGER ANNOUNCEMENT

PAIN PROGRESS

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I wish vacations were longer

Cute puppies can still be terrible monsters of teeth and claw, though, so be careful not to get fooled.

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