Saturday: Well, that was unexpected

This Cards Against Humanity response was put together by a 19-month old:

Following the game, she attempted to beat me up with a recorder.  Today's been a bit odd.

• I guess this conservative blog is saying that being kind of crazy isn't enough, they should be so crazy that they destroy the country, the global economy, and everything, just to keep some poor people from being able to be healthy.
• I kind of wonder how many people do this exact same thing.
• Adding two fucking eggs doesn't add any "special homemade goodness."
• Yeah.  Why don't they just let Bruce Timm run everything?  He helped run the animated series for like fifteen years.  Does DC feel bad if they aren't absolutely fucking things up?
• Endless shrimp.

Friday: Rain, food, different food, some math, links

Austin was rainy today:

But then we went to get Noble Pig for lunch.  I forgot to take a picture.

Dinner was a meat overdose at Estancia.  I did take a picture.

Is there an actual name for those plots that show all the combinations of N-dimensional data as a grid of 2-D plots?  They're usually done in upper or lower triangular form, as the other entries in the grid are transposes of the ones plotted.

• Totoro house.
• New character designs.
• Squirrels.
• I hope this shuts down production and Johnny Test goes off the air.  It's such an obvious knock-off of Dexter's Lab.
• I saw this episode of Pokemon today.  I enjoyed it.

Thursday: Apparently my recent posts have been "bad"

That's largely been due to the fact that I've been travelling, and on vacation, and not having consistent internet access such that I can read the internet, filter it down to a select set of links, and compile that into a post.

I now have caught up on the majority of the internets, so I can clear out the backlog of links I've been saving.

Masala Wok.  Why isn't this everywhere?  It's currently only in Texas and Virginia.  That's fucking bullshit.  Tasty Indian food should be omnipresent.

• Pokemon.
• Ash's Mom.
• You're an idiot, Ash.
• I would totally watch this show.  I've added the youtube link to my ever-growing pile of unwatched youtube videos.
• Squirrels.
• Education squirrel.
• Fuck you, cat.  Just straight up fuck you.
• Cartoons and comics.
• Finn and Jake's treehouse as seen by a real estate blog.
• What the fuck, the 60s?  
• DC.  Still fucked up.
• Economics.
• Here's an additional explanation on "a tax deduction is much more valuable to someone who makes a lot of money than someone who makes little".  Looking up the tax table for 2012 (filing singly), and taking two potential taxpayers who make $100k (lot of money) and $20k (little money), a $7500 tax credit (which is an "above the line" kind of thing) cuts the tax on the lot of money case by $2086, compared to $1117 for the little money case.  "But that's still a reduction!" Sure, but if you're assuming that the $7500 number arises because that's how much the insurance costs, this means that the final cost of insurance for the wealthy case is ~$5400 and ~$6400 for the poor case.  How is this supposed to be helping?  Ignore for the moment that this is like 1/3 of the total income for the poor case.
• So, you know, just never go to Papa John's pizza ever again.  If I could bankrupt someone with my mind, he'd be at the top of the list.
• Because fuck you, hungry people.  Maybe if you weren't so damn poor, you could buy giant agricultural subsidies to keep you from going to bed with that dull, endless gnawing in your tummy.  Maybe a little bit of malnutrition will teach you that being poor isn't cool, you hipsters.
• Appropriate historical considerations on libertarianism.
• Christ, what an asshole.  
• Other stuff.
• Degas.  That was what I was expecting up until that point.
• Cushy government jobs.
• Reference for above.
• Advertisements.
• "I'm high as a fucking kite!"
• What the absolute fuck?
• "I will murder you in your sleep.  With vinegar!"
• "I will murder you in your sleep.  Just regular murder."
• "It's made with only the finest cocaine and laudanum!"

I honestly did not expect this post to take so long to put together.

Wednesday: austin

I could do a full post, as I'm currently charging my phone through my laptop (as the most expensive extension cord ever) and I'm pretty much right next to the wifi router.  However, I'm sleepy, so I'm not going to.  Instead, three scenes.

First: the first qdoba burrito I've had in like two years.  IND has one before security, so I got one today.  Somehow, I also got the cool security line, as it was run basically on the "pre check" standards.  Shoes stayed on, lappy stayed in the bag, liquids stayed in the bag as well.  It was a wonderful return to the pre-insanity days.  I can only hope this level of sanity starts spreading.

Second: a somewhat unhappy dog being loaded into the cqrgo bay at IAH. I would think it'd be better to drive, but whatever.

Third: delicious fried chicken.  Lucy's, I think? Delicious.

Tuesday: i need to read my calendar better

I had been thinking

Seriously? Blogger app just ate my post. Fuck.

Monday: still wifi deficient

I did sort out an fft issue today, though.  Turns out saving values is far more efficient if you do your math first.

Sunday: Not much here

1. Helpful seal.
2. Larry Summers.
3. Philadelphia schools.

Fuck, that's the wrong list type.

I did get a bit of work stuff done today, sorting out a new modularized FFT code.  I haven't reimplemented the algorithm in any useful way, but it's at least something.

Saturday: Sitting closer to the router, so here are the links

• Animals
• Bear.
• Koala.
• Different bears.
• Space frog.
• Cartoons and stuff
• Pokemon.  I'm not super happy with the Chespin evolution, but either the final one will be cute again, or you can just keep it as a Chespin.
• Harley Quinn, written well.
• Disney Princesses, costume set 1.
• Disney Princesses, costume set 2.
• Thork.
• I've set a calendar mark for these dates, so hopefully it'll show up in Hawaii around then.
• "Leg Jacket."
• Politics and whatnot.
• I'm not so sure this is a good idea.  If the fungus eats waste plastic, what stops it from eating plastic you're trying to use?
• Languages.
• Hedge funds.
• There's a new new world of darkness?

Friday: still too far from the router

So I'm going to just stick this filler post in, maybe with a photo I took long ago.

It turns out letter cube kleenex boxesare a bad idea.

Thursday: so far from the wifi router

I flew through Houston this morning.

This is a stupid pose.

I got doughnuts.  Not bad, but who makes chocolate yeast doughnuts?  Assholes who want to fool you, apparently.

Also, they may have been trying to kill me with this OJ.  Thanks, Shipley Do-nuts.

Burrito style

Usually, with most sandwiches, I like them cut in half. I also have some bizarre rules for how the should be sliced. Triangles for most sandwiches, except those that contain a sausage as the main component (like salami). Those should be cut into rectangles. I kind of like grilled cheese the same way, unless it will be used as a soup dipper, in which case the triangles give you a better point for dipping.

However, things like this quizno sandwich I like to eat "burrito style", without cuts. Somehow it seems like two smaller sandwiches aren't as good. It's weird.

#wtf cares, #posts from airplanes and airports, #food

Wednesday: Early pre-travel post

I think the cat-stronauts have just landed in the middle of a civil war of the space cats.  Clearly, there are two factions of flags.  How bad did their luck have to be to have one of the faction symbols on their lander?

• Squirrel.
• Inequality.
• Pokemon.

Tuesday: Just fucking rain

Yet again, the sky is playing the "fuck you, I'm going to make it unbearable around here by holding all the moisture just slightly above the dew point."  Fuck you, the sky.

I'm also somewhat concerned about my packing for this trip.  Half my suitcase is taken up with import/export items.  The other half is clothes.  When did I suddenly only need half a suitcase for a trip?  My best guess is that I'm always doing work/vacation hybrids, and so I need two entirely different sets of clothes that don't overlap well.  I also don't need to pack any warm weather stuff, since my understanding is that the mainland still thinks it's july or something.

I'm also optimistic that the fact that there are 7 open first class seats and 23 open business class seats means that my odds of getting an upgrade are pretty good.  In any case, I have a nice exit row/window with an empty (as of right now) aisle beside me.  Plus, since this is old Continental flight stock, every seat has a personal entertainment thing, so I can watch movies.  According to this, I can probably catch Iron Man 3 (no, I haven't seen it, but I know all the spoilers anyway), new Star Trek (probably not, because it sounds stupid), The Hobbit (maybe), or I could just watch the Avengers again, since I saw that on the last flight that had one of these.

The insect uprising has begun!

• I didn't until seeing this realize that they're right.  That's just an old-man version of Ash.
• This is yet another reason that sequestration is stupid.  It's like the entire Republican party completely misunderstands the concept of penny-wise/pound-foolish.
• Today's one of those days where I don't have a third link.

Monday: I had intended to do some pre-packing today for vacation. That did not happen.

I think before bed, I'll drag out my suitcase, dump all my Hawaii goods into it, and then pile up a sufficient quantity of socks in it.  That should certainly count for something.

I also need to copy over the data sample I need from work.  I have a vague plan to play with the FFT code I've been too busy to work on while on vacation.  "But it's vacation, you should be doing not work related things!"  Yes, but you have no clue how much fun playing with FFT stuff is.  Basically, you take the image, come up with a Fourier space filter, apply it, and see what it does to the reverse transformed image.  There are specific goals in mind, so it's not just random futzing.  The only issue is, I need a decent sample of data to play with, so I can check that filter algorithm X looks great on all of them.


Here are two Batman: The Animated Series comic pages that I've shamelessly stolen from someplace.  Batgirl needs to change to fight crime, but there are too many people around.

I'm leaving this one small as it's marginally not safe for work.

Update from the frontlines of Operation: Suitcase: I haven't traveled since AAS, so my suitcase is full of AAS crap.  The good news of that, though, is that I still have the Paperback Book I didn't finish on that trip, so I can pick it right up where I left off.  It's either Livy or Tacitus, so you know, vacation reading.

• Secret book porn.  Not, well, ok, it's kind of that kind of "book porn."  But also the other kind.  But it's also like 400 years old, so that kind of makes it N-NSFW.
• This is the best thing I've heard yet.
• I'm pretty sure that's not right.
• Math jokes are best jokes.
• Last three panels.  No, you don't need to know what's going on, just go read the last three panels, and understand that Lottie is one of the greatest characters ever created in the history of ever.
• I'm watching this story, Yale.  If I ever find out that you did something to the squirrels, you will regret it.  In a bloody death covered in the bushy tails of a billion tiny sinusoidal leaps.

Sunday: Doing nothing, then getting frustrated at algorithms

Because seriously, algorithm, you shouldn't be this fucking hard to get working.  I probably just need to not work on it when I'm sleepy.  Stupid algorithm.

I guess as long as it's wearing a seat belt.

• More details on how DC is falling apart.
• Ad #2.  What's wrong with the bunsen burner?
• So Australia voted.  Badly, it seems.
• UNACCEPTABLE!

Saturday: Last weekend before vacation

That probably means I should start packing, and cleaning up my apartment, and all that.  Instead, I went and got ramen:

Delicious, delicious ramen.

And then go get some groceries and make sure I have all the Hawaii stuff to bring to the mainland.

Plus I got to see this guy who decided to bring his dog to Safeway.

Then I totally wasted the entire rest of the day in a brilliant blast of doing nothing productive.  I did something satirical, but I'm not sure that totally counts.

• Is it just me, or does burning man seem like it's just there so a bunch of richer-than-average jerks can go not take showers in the desert?
• Interesting thing to think about.  Although it might seem like "horrible socialism" to confiscate money from the wealthy to support the unwanted and unutilized labor sector, without this, that sector (you know, "consumers") won't have the means to purchase the things that the wealthy are making.  Rand would suggest that the wealthy will just go someplace where they won't have to support the moochers, but I don't really think that many people are that sociopathic.
• I like Snorlax.  Look at that smile. :)
• Just kidding!

This Harley Quinn debacle

I was pretty much with everyone else on this, with the "wow, that's a shitty set of panels."  Then I sat down and though, "hey, I can fucking do that.  I have the power of CRAYON THEATER!"  Then I saw this suggestion, and decided I was on board adding the extra constraint of "put Kate and Maggie in the background."  I've had to retrofit my drawing to follow the whole "proposal/wedding/reception/honeymoon" in my explanation text, but I'm fine with bending the rules a bit.

First, I needed some references.  I know what Harley looks like, but I couldn't remember where the red and black trade off.  Next, I needed to remember what Maggie Sawyer looks like entirely.  Batwoman is again red and black, but I forgot she has a wing-y mask.  Finally, "cellphone tower"? WTF?

PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.

Explanation:  Here we see Harley on top of a building in the right foreground.  She is holding the large DETACHED cellphone tower and lightning is striking everywhere.  I've drawn a second Harley, to illustrate that she is beside herself.  Neither Harley is happy.

In the background, on a tower that I designed with windows that kind of look like a face, we can see Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer kissing, after Maggie accepts Kate's marriage proposal.

PANEL 2 
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.

Explanation: Harley is sitting in an alligator pond on a little island.  As instructed, the little island has a suit of raw chicken on.  I'm not sure I got the color quite right, but I decided to make the suit jacket lapels out of chicken legs to ensure that the concept went through.  It's hard to draw rolling eyes with a very dull black crayon, so I gave Harley a shruggy pose, and illustrated her confusion using two large question marks above her head.  There are two alligators, both of which are ignoring Harley, as they are busy watching the wedding in the distance.  They are dressed in their best alligator top hats, as this is a formal occasion (possibly why the island is wearing the suit).

In the background, Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer are getting married.  Note that to emphasize this, I did not color the cocktails that I originally had in the alligators' hands.  You don't drink at the wedding proper, so it didn't seem appropriate.

PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale’s mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.

Explanation:  I think this one is pretty self explanatory.  I made the feather green to ensure it stood out among the other colors, but it now kind of looks like a pickle.  I have no clue what the inside of a whale's mouth looks like, so I made it uniformly red.  The whale is based on my memory of Bubby from Flapjack.

On top of the whale's head, Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer are having their first dance.  I now see that Maggie kind of looks like a badly rendered NES character.

PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.

Explanation: Harley is in the bathtub, naked except for her mask (otherwise, how would you know it was her?).  Above her, I've dangled the toaster, blow dryer, blender, and for the "appliances," I selected a refrigerator and a washing machine.  I didn't use the plurals of these, as again, crayons are hard to draw with.  You may note that the blender is in an impossible position, as that cord could not possibly support it upright.  This entire thing is an impossible position.  In Harley's left hand, she's holding a A-minor chord, reminding us of the sadness of inevitable death.  It also matches the requirement in the screenshot attached above.  In case the new text of "cord" is correct, I have placed that into Harley's right hand.

Through the window behind Harley, I've drawn Batwoman and Maggie Sawyers swinging through town on their honeymoon.  The sun is shining through the other window.

Friday: Wait, I only have like five days until vacation starts?

I probably should start organizing things, in that case.

I gave a talk today.  It went reasonably well, with a decent amount of interest, I though.  At least one more highly interested code user.

There's a web above my desk at work:

It's really only visible at the end of the day when the sunlight catches it correctly.

• Bunny.
• Boston Terrier on a Roomba.
• Macaroni Grill.
• Shame.
• Fucking scumbag.

Thursday: Have some things

1: this cool plot I made at work today

It's covering the correct way to make a CDF from a gappy histogram, and the way that's currently happening that's wrong.

2: I made that french bread buffalo wing pseudo-pizza thing.

It wasn't super great, partially because the blue cheese didn't melt down quite right, and I had the cheese to spice balance wrong.  Also, that fontina I bought is kind of shitty.  

3: Dr. Snap

I thought it would be like Dr. Pepper, but it's really not.  It's kind of like a soda fountain suicide.  It's rather sweet, but I liked the subtle cherry/fruity flavors.  And yes, I stole the image because I squished my can.

4: links

• Political stuff
• Health care reform is now pretty likely to work.
• My representative already came out against the strike, so I guess that's good.
• Interns.
• Comic books stuff.
• Best pun ever.
• Good job fucking shit up, DC.  Maybe you should fire some people.  Dan Didio would be a nice place to start.
• Tony Stark is a jerk.
• Other stuff.
• I liked the Futurama ending.
• Wait, so are the Gen 1 starters alternate options (you may choose one of these six), or are they in addition to the Gen 6 starters (you may choose one from G6, and one from G1)?  I think I need to get this game.  Chespin/Charizard.

5: because internet

Nope. No clue.

Wednesday: I shouldn't go to WF on weeknights

Even though the parking lot is nearly empty, the store is full of utter and absolute assholes.  Like the fucking German tourists ordering two burritos each.  Or the next person in line who ordered three burritos.  WF is not a fucking restaurant.  Needless to say, I didn't get a burrito for dinner, as I didn't think it was worth the time to wait for everyone to order food for their entire fucking family.

I also don't understand people who attack the hot food bars, dash around the corner, and look at you like you're a jerk for nearly running their ass over.  Maybe watch where you're going, dickbag.  Also, your plate is full of tofu and lettuce.  Why not just kill yourself if you're going to eat tasteless shit?

Also, is it inappropriate to suggest that people are "shitty ass parents" if they let their two year old dance around the front of the cart?  I mean, eventually, you're just going to run her over.  Everyone then will call you shitty ass parents, so I'm just predicting the future a little bit.

Also also: this jackass:

Not pictured: the asshole four spots over that was parked with his left wheels on the wrong side of the line.

On the other hand, the mountains were lit nicely in Manoa this evening:

Plus, I'm reasonably sure that I've identified the problem of the week at work to being an issue of making histograms of quantized data without correctly spacing the histogram bins to account for the quantization.  Woo.

• I never knew that the guy who did Klonoa was also the guy who did Ninja Gaiden.  That does explain some of the later levels of Klonoa.
• I don't have a brownie, but I kind of want one now.
• Pokemon.
• At first I was all "bunny hockey!"  Then I googled that and discovered it's for a condom commercial and not some sort of puppy bowl thing.
• Why is Heavy Metal free on the internet archive?  No clue, but it's kind of cool.
• Interesting.  This same algorithm could probably be used to identify continuum discontinuities in spectral data.
• I haven't watched the video yet, but all the quotes I've seen seem actually pretty accurate.
• Republicans are pretty much all old white people, especially at conventions.
• They don't want to pay taxes, because that'd be "theft."  
• They don't want to pay for tuition, which is why state funding of state universities has dropped, forcing corresponding tuition increases on new students.
• "You can frown if you want," isn't really what I'd call bullying.
• The voter id laws in SC and NC suddenly happened when the elements of the voting right's act were struck down by the asshats on the Supreme Court.  Since those are specifically in place to prevent racist voting laws, it's not really much of a stretch to state that those laws are there to try and stop black people from voting.
• Republicans are not in the majority, and are increasingly not in the majority, since they're pretty much all old.
• I'll admit that this isn't really "creative writing" material, however.  He should probably stick to the syllabus.
• Mitch Lyon seems to be a bit of a dickbag, too.
• Have I used "murder them in the face" in this post?  Looks like no.  Or yes.  Now.  Yes, now.

Tuesday: How the hell did so much shit happen on a Tuesday?

Not actual shit, of course, but internet shit that has bloated today's link storm into some kind of link-deluge.  At least a lot of them are simple "clicky-looky-laugh-close" things.

I don't quite think this qualifies as creepy, but it is definitely sad.

• I fucking hate it when people back into parking spaces.  How long does it take to pull in frontwards?  One motion.  How long to back out?  Two, one in reverse to a side, one in forward into the direction of traffic.  How many to back in?  Eight-thousand, because people always fuck up the alignment, and have to do it over and over again.  Plus, most of them fail to back in sufficiently, so they stick out of the parking space.  Finally, I'm sitting here waiting for you to stop fucking around so I can fucking pass you.  Asshole.
• So someone spent the day trapped in Costco.
• I saw the AV club story first, but this has a screenshot and funny reaction gifs.
• What?
• This is three years old, but I'm just now learning about it.  Contains: “I don’t imagine holding up a thin bony shield that can gush blood would be a very effective means of defence.”
• Internet jerks.
• Don't use excel for science.  I would have assumed everyone knew that by now, but I guess not.
• Obviously, since they don't actually care beyond the twin goals of a) selling arms and b) trying to make government oppression common.
• I can't read this whole article Kyle sent, but I can read just enough to laugh at pandas.

Monday: Labor Day

I was supposed to write a talk today for Friday, based on a set of slides from Julie that are apparently "better than my slides, because my slides are stupid."  Whatever.  It's Labor Day, so I shouldn't have to do work.  You know, since I'm obviously part of the working class laboring under The Man.

Except in my case "The Man" is really an enormously complex government funded grant bureaucracy dependent on the whims of scientific fashion and the current sanity level of the legislature.


Anyway, I decided to make the Most Labor Day Meal Ever:

The Patty Melt.

Why is this the Most Labor day Meal ever?  Simple:

1. It's a tasty meal that anyone would be happy to eat at the end of a long day of hard work.
2. It uses bread for hamburger buns, representing thrift.
3. I had rye bread that's kind of too stale for making regular sandwiches.
4. I really like patty melts.
5. This is my blog, so there.

It wasn't the best I've ever made, but satisfied all the important points.  It was tasty, the difficulties were largely due to impatience, om nom nom.

6. I have a wizard dog.

• Here's the economics I'm too lazy to talk about today.
• One of these led me to find the other one, and I'm really thinking about making that french bread pseudo-pizzas later this week.
• It's the eyes.  Watch the eyes.  --Alternate-- "Captain Fluffy quickly learned the treachery of the Vacu-oids."
• That's pretty cool.
• Huh.  I'm too lazy to decode the bad google translation of the page, but a) I had no idea they were remaking Sailor Moon. b) I guess the Sailor Saturn/Sailor ChibiMoon "two years ago" thing is a play on Sailor V? c) I'm pretty sure Rei's daughter Rin isn't wearing a standard issue Miko attire.  d) Everyone grown up looks angry except Makoto.  Maybe Tuxedo Mask looks happy.  "I did nothing for years except throwing a rose and gibbering some nonsense.  My life rules."  I can see that.  e) Yes, I realize I know far too much about this show, but I spend like my entire junior year of college going to classes from like 10 until like 3 straight, so I'd get take-out food from the cafeteria and eat a very late lunch watching cartoons, and this happened to be what Toonami was showing at that time.

Sunday: Things I am currently annoyed by

1. My neighbor and the stink of perfume that permeates everything every time he comes or goes.
2. The four fucking cops that decided to space themselves out perfectly so I had thirty fucking seconds of sirens blaring down the street outside.  You have your fucking sirens on, jackasses.  You can go faster than ten miles an hour.
3. People who write jokes that rely purely on loud and grating sounds.  "Look at me! I'm making noises! I am the pinnacle of humor!"  No, you're a shit bag with a bunch of stock noises you've overlaid all together.
4. Commercials for movies that think showing a bunch of clips cut together in some sort of strobe light view.  That's not edgy, it just means you only trust your movie in two second intervals.
5. Flash games that don't understand how to structure a difficulty curve.  The one I played today that I will never play again apparently thought "sine wave" was the right way to do it.  Odd levels are trivially easy.  Even levels are basically impossible, with three of them actually removing all of the skills you've built up in previous levels to advance a shitty story I was skipping over anyway.
6. These people:

The ones on the right. 

1. Nice job being rude to all the sushi people.
2. You don't put the ginger on your sushi.  Everyone knows that.  You especially don't put a giant fucking gob of it on your sushi.
3. You don't take something, look at it, then decide you don't want it and put it back on the fucking belt.
4. I use the disposable chopsticks all the time.  I have a package of them on my fridge, because I use them at home too.  I've never had an issue where a splinter wasn't totally obvious and easy to pull off.  You don't need to pretend sharpen them together.
5. Some things take some time, and sometimes, your one plate order for something gets lost.  That's how it fucking goes.  You don't have to get all shitty because you didn't get something.

But other than that, sushi day!

Woo!

That doesn't look quite festive enough.

That works.

• Bear perspective.
• Best Boston terrier gif ever.
• Bunnies!
• Batman.  Basically the point I made yesterday, extended to Selina.

Saturday: Super productive day

One interesting thing was that I saw this image online:

My first thought was: "holy crap, this is so fucking stupid that it has to be fake."  However, that mission does exist, so it's possible it's not fake.  I decided to see if google had any idea about it, and it gave me this set of results:

Ok, so let's give Huckabee the reasonable doubt that someone hacked his facebook and posted that post (which now seems taken down?).  That's kind of a lame thing to post on a hacked facebook page, as usually such attacks go for the more obvious paths.

That kind of leaves the possibility that Huckabee saw a news story that he thought was a great way to post the lyrics to his favorite Benny Goodman song, his bat-shit followers went predictably bat-shit to slam NASA, the government, and godless heathens, and Huckabee then pulled it down out of shame.  These are your people, Mike Huckabee.  Own their bat-shit insanity.

"Oooh! Burn!"

• Squirrels.
• Math.
• So you're being told to ignore stuff, and focus and real crime, and you're bitching about it?  Christ, what an asshole.
• Worth reading through.  Bruce Timm and the rest of the BTAS team clearly understood the characters.  Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, Clayface, etc.  They gave them actual personalities, actual motivations.  They weren't just someone to run in and get punched in the face.  They live in a tragedy of their own construction, and sometimes realize this fact.
• Probably should have started with this idea, Captain Planning.  If all actions are equally bad, choose an action that forces the lack of action choosing on someone else, preferably someone who is known for being absolutely incapable of any action whatsoever.

Friday: Some people should not be allowed to drive

Case in point: old guy at the doctor's office parking garage this morning.  First problem, he was about 90 years old, and was therefore something like four feet tall.  Second problem, he was driving a brand new F-150, which are apparently 98 feet tall.  Third problem: despite the parking garage having a simple "spiral up, then spiral back down" design, he got lost.  Everywhere.  Come to a corner you have to turn around to do that "spiral" thing?  Stop.  Look all the ways for twenty seconds.  Come to the point at the top of the spiral where there's a tiny set of spaces to the left, but you have to turn right to go anywhere?  Stop.  Look both ways for thirty seconds, or, until I honk at you and gesture in the only damn way that isn't "off the fucking roof".  Come to the place where there's a sign clearly indicating "exit ->"? Stop.  Read the sign.  Have a tiny nap, or something, because fuck everyone who has things to do today.  Come to the place where you have to pay and turn in your parking ticket thing?  Stop, put on your turn signal, and drive into the lane marked "express pass only."  You know, for the people that work there?  Then, realize that you've driven away from the only person who can take your stupid ticket, and roll down your window and ask him why he's so far away.

Just stop, old man.  You're too old to drive, and you probably shouldn't have bought a new giant-ass truck, you dumbass.

In better news, I saw this guy in the hall at work today:

I don't think he was dead, but he was very convinced that he shouldn't move.

• Reasons this guy is wrong:
• Pandas are cute, and we should support that.
• Lots of species have been driven to extinction.  Maybe it's worth not doing that for once.
• Who cares if it costs money, as zoos probably have done the analysis and discovered that having a panda ensures more people visit, making up for those costs.
• If we're unable to ever reintroduce them to the wild, then we're really just talking about how long it'll be before they're domesticated enough to be pets.
• If you don't want a pet panda, you're a horrible person.
• Last line.
• Seven miles.  Then again, I used the cheat that I remembered that Damascus is basically at the same latitude as the boundary between Israel and Lebanon.  Second step: name two bodies of water in Israel. a) Dead Sea, b) Sea of Galilee.  Look at the map, remember that Lebanon has fuck-all in terms of lakes, so that top-most one must be Sea of Galilee.  So that's Israel still, and you still need to fit Lebanon and Syria before you get to Turkey.  That means the border can't be too much more north of that.  Next, cities aren't deserts.  So, that smudge to the East must be Damascus.  See, simple, and it only takes a pile of random geographic facts that you can cobble together into a functional picture of the world.
• This is kind of cool.
• Good job, Texas.  Nice to see you've discovered that dumb actions have expensive consequences.

Dear Tomorrow Me,

Hey, Present-Day Me here.  Just wanted to remind you not to forget that this algorithm:

@box = ();
$prior = NAN;
$v = -100;
for ($i = 0; $i <= $#data; $i++) {
    if ($i <= 40) {
        push @box, $data[$i];
    }
    else {
        $min = 0;
        $max = $#box + 1;
        do {
            $j = int(($max + $min) /2);
            if ($box[$j] < $prior) {
                $min = $j;
            }
            elsif ($box[$j] > $prior) {
                $max = $j;
            }
        } while ($box[$j] != $prior);
        $box[$j] = $data[$i];

    @box = sort {$a <=> $b} @box;
    $v = $box[int($#box / 2)];

    $prior = $data[$i];
}

Is a way more efficient way to do the running medians.  The idea being: fill the box up to full size.  Next, we sort the box.  That gives this median.  On the next cycle, do a binary search through the sorted box for the point we want to remove.  I've fucked it up here, as I really need to set it to $prior = $data[$i - $boxsize] or something.  In any case, once you find that point, pull it out, and insert the new point into that position.  The rest of the array stays sorted, so the sort operation really only needs to push this new point into the correct location.  

1377855882 start

1377855882 end read

1377855900 end direct

1377855906 end optimal

So, the direct method takes 18 seconds for 1e6 samples, and this optimal method takes 6, so like a factor of three speedup.

I'm unclear if this can be similarly extended to the MAD calculation, as that's going to require backing out the old median and pushing in the new one in addition to the replacement.  Probably not a deal breaker, but you'll have to sort that out yourself, ok?

Love,

Present-Day Me

PS: Here's a sleepy bear:

"zzzzz"

Thursday: wenk

No real reason, I was just thinking about Gunter.

"DEATH FROM ABOVE!"

• Pizza.
• Pandas.
• Old man yells at cloud.

Wednesday: Fewer things

Did anyone else know that Stouffer's used to have restaurants?

This is dumb.  Quick horizontal pass, quick vertical pass, quick regular diagonals, DONE.

• What an asshole.
• Monte cristo?  Really?
• Health care.
• Stunningly accurate analysis of the problem.
• I honestly don't know what side this old cover is taking.  
• Really? I didn't really like how they treated Ahsoka during the last season I saw, and this makes it even less likely I'll care about any future seasons.  

Tuesday: So many things

Thing 1: Batman

I saw this post yesterday, but my Batman was at the office:

I specifically requested Batman looking through a telescope.

Thing 2: Fucking passwords

Maybe other people don't have this problem, but I have passwords on my work computer, and I have passwords on my laptop, and I can never remember which password is the correct one for any given webpage.  So, I decided today to just fucking punch remembering passwords in the face:

alias i_forgot 'cp ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Login\ Data /tmp && echo "select origin_url,username_value,password_value from logins;" | sqlite3 /tmp/Login\ Data'

No new lines obviously.  This copies your chrome password database to /tmp (necessary because an active chrome process puts a lock on the database).  Then, it pulls the url, username, and password for all saved passwords out of the database so you can figure out what it is.

"Oh, that's horribly insecure."  Yep.  But if they're saved in plaintext, there's not much you can do.  I think older versions had them in base64 encoding, but that's effectively plaintext.  In any case, I don't care, and now I can get them with just a quick grep.

Thing 3: Complicated problems

 I sat down to work on a problem at work, and after checking that it's not an issue with the statistic we're using being badly calculated, and checking that it's not an issue with bad quantization, I think I've come to the conclusion that the reason X != A - b is that at no place in the code do we actually subtract b from A.  This led to the creation of a directory named "wtf_really", because that was pretty much my only possible reaction.

Thing 4: I have some other pictures, but I'm going to ration them since I always run out

Dog seance.

Thing 5: links

• Next Miyazaki film.
• The other side of this NSA thing that everyone forgets about:  people are basically lazy and incompetent dumbasses.  Case in point: this whole NSA thing.  We have people who are more interested in finding out what their ex-es are doing than tracking down that you bought Marx from amazon.  Everyone thinks it's some grand conspiracy pulling the strings.  Imagine the people you work with.  Now imagine them trying to construct a grand conspiracy.  Are you afraid of that?
• LOL.
• I wish this had a transcript, but it sounds like another reason Assange is a dick.
• This tweet, then this tweet, then this response that has the solution I came up with as well.

Thing 6: Thoughts on labels

I think I need a "stupid math" as well as a "math is hard".  The first would be for things like today, and the second for actual interesting math.  Similarly, a "useful shell crap" that I just dump into "technology".  This is probably an extension of me splitting "my real work notebook" out of "crayon theater", since it's not in crayon.  Then again, I routinely dump generic comic book stuff into "Batman".

Monday: Things often seem more obvious in hindsight

Case for today: for a given range of wavelength, there are three closely spaced lines.  If the spectrograph resolution is insufficient to cleanly resolve these lines, they blur together into a single mass.  However, they must be comprised of symmetric Gaussians (or near-Gaussian) profiles.  Therefore, for each observed "mass," construct a symmetry calculation that is simply the sum of values to the left minus those to the right of the highest peak.  If this symmetry value (technically the absolute value of that for obvious reasons) is above a certain threshold (which I need to investigate more), declare this mass "woefully blended."  Next, use the presumably unblended portion (the one that has the less weight in the symmetry value), and subtract that off the mass.  Repeat.

Using this method, you should be able to strip off realizations of the inputs to the blend, which you can then fit more properly later.  As stated above, it relies on components being symmetric, and at least half clean.  Adding an analytic aspect to the subtracted model could fix this, although that starts to add a lot of extra complexity.  Still, it's a nice little algorithm that should be fairly easy to implement.

And then later in the day I drew a tiny picture of BMO in my notebook.

• Team Rocket.
• I also have word problems sometimes.  Very similar to this, I have to construct new words out of old to fill in for an existing word that has suddenly disappeared.
• What are you doing, hamster?
• What a jerk.
• I was looking at phones today due to unrelated things, and saw that this is going to be a thing soon.
• This is important, but I don't feel like explaining why.  Blah blah bubbles, blah blah corruption, blah blah poor central planning.