kadatheron: August 16, 1997 - October 6, 2013

I've already covered the main history of kadatheron in a previous post four years ago, so to start with, I wanted to go through the case design and components.  

From the top, you can see the laptop hard drive that's been storing the cvs archive along with something like a gigabyte of swap space.  It's sitting in the place where the main optical disk drive should be, as the front case has a slot for the disk tray to open, as well as a button pass through.  This bay is blocked off by a disk caddy thing that's been reversed.  The laptop drive is sitting loose, but that hasn't been much of a problem.  The brass rails are there to hold a previous disk drive that failed.  Below this caddy is the current optical drive, which was necessary to do the system reinstall after I moved.

Spinning around to the back side shows the motherboard tray.  I kind of liked this aspect of the design, although it had certain problems (listed below).  The idea being that after removing the screw on top (already done in this picture) and the screw on the chassis back (still there), you can slide the motherboard, while it's still attached to the tray and therefore grounded, towards the front to clear the back panel, and then swing it out to service it.

However, this next picture shows the failure of that plan:  the expansion cards are not attached to a similar tray, but rather to the rear of the case.  Therefore, if you want to operate on the motherboard, you need to remove all of the expansion cards.  Not the best strategy.

This view also shows the original 2GB main hard drive.  I really thought that this would be the first component to fail.  I suspect that with the laptop hard drive doing most of the read/writes, the load on it dropped to a point where it was able to work without trouble.  Below the hard drive is the floppy disk drive, the last one that I have that still worked.  Next is the giant block of the power supply, with a curious beige angle to be discussed at the end.

Next are the expansion cards:

The original ISA ethernet card.  Rereading the previous blog post reminds me that this is dead.

Ethernet router necessitated PCI ethernet card.

ISA modem.

Here's a picture of the motherboard after removal.  Empty expansion slots on the bottom, the Pentium 200MHZ under the chunky aluminum heat sink on the right, the 32MB RAM card just under the 16MB hardwired RAM on the surface.  I suspect that the two dark brown slots on the top left are where the expandable video memory would have gone.  The board claims "256k * 16/40ns", which google seems to translate into "Yes, this is a type of RAM slot."  

And now we get to the part that finally was the downfall of kadatheron.  You'll notice that there is no fan on the processor heat sink.  That beige angle shown above is also visible in the next image, where you can see that it lines up nicely with the location of the processor when the motherboard is inserted.

In order to save money/space/cooling?, Compaq decided that the input fan for the power supply (a Mitac 304231-001) should suck the hot air off the processor, feed that air over the power supply components, and then exhaust it out the back of the case.  Alternatively (if I have the fan direction wrong), it sucks outside air into the power supply, over the power supply components, and then onto the processor to push the heat away.

Rear exhaust port on the power supply.

Last night, I heard a noise, and initially thought that my neighbor was running his garbage disposal.  When it didn't stop for ten minutes, I got up and investigated.  Kadatheron had started making a loud grating sound, and after opening the case and touching all the things with moving parts, I was able to track the sound down to the power supply fan.  Not a good thing.

I immediately rsynced the important things off the disks (CVS archive, /etc, /var, /home), and started looking around online.  Amazon has a refurbished unit for $100.  Ebay has units of questionable quality for $30.  This was the point where it didn't make sense to attempt to fix it.  After being up and running almost constantly for sixteen years, I decided that the best thing to do would be to shut kadatheron down for the final time.

I've also ordered a replacement.  I wanted something small and lightweight, since I really just need something that can serve the CVS data, and maybe some other minor data access stuff.  To that end, I decided to get a tiny Raspberry Pi kit for the replacement.  Definitely not a super powered device, but it's still significantly stronger than kadatheron, and should allow everything to be fanless and have data based on sd cards.  No moving parts means it's much harder to die.  Now I just need to come up with a hostname for it.

Saturday: Sometimes I can't not do something

First, though, the Saturday pictures.  There was sushi:

Standard unagi. 

I tried the tempura banana as well.  Not bad, although it's a bit too much for one sitting.

Then I went to look at books, and to see if I wanted to get a Nook HD, since they're rather cheap now.  It looks decent, but it doesn't have a standard usb charger/input thing.  That's a bit of a problem, as I don't really care to travel around with 99 chargers.  I'll keep looking, I think.  I also discovered that there's a Martin Gardner biography, which I picked up.  Thank you, B&N, for indexing math biographies in the math section, instead of the biography section.

They also had the Epic Gassy Jake on sale.  I did not buy that.

Now back to the thing that once I imagined, I couldn't not make.  EGJ reminded me of Adventure Time, and the AT Mad Libs book I got in Texas.  I tried to find another one of those to add to the pile of games and things I've left there, but was unsuccessful.  This led to me thinking about what Mad Libs really is.  Basically, you take a paragraph, extract out random words, replace them with a set of links to a list of parts of speech.  This means you can probably automate their construction.

Now, wikipedia has basically an infinite supply of paragraphs, and the first paragraph of wikipedia stories tend to be reasonably self-contained and short.  So, if you grab the first paragraph for a keyword, you have a reasonable source.  Next, you can randomly choose words from that paragraph, but you still need to figure out what part of speech they are.  One option would be to attempt to write a parser to identify the part of speech from context.  The only problem with that is that it's kind of super hard, and a lot more work than is probably necessary.  This is doubly true when you remember that wikipedia has a dictionary as well, and those pages have an easily parseable part of speech values in the contents box.

So, dance things around, do some stop-word exclusion, filter out things that get in the way, and blammo: perl script generated mad libs:

A puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies can weigh 1–3lb , while larger ones 
can weigh up to 15–23lb . All healthy puppies grow quickly after birth. A 
puppy's coat color may change as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in 
breeds such as the Yorkshire Terrier. In vernacular English, puppy refers 
specifically to dogs while pup may often be used for other mammals such as 
seals, giraffes, guinea pigs, or even rats. 
      Noun    [0]: ____________________________________________
 Adjective    [1]: ____________________________________________
      Noun    [2]: ____________________________________________
      Verb    [3]: ____________________________________________
      Noun    [4]: ____________________________________________
    Adverb    [5]: ____________________________________________
 Adjective    [6]: ____________________________________________
      Verb    [7]: ____________________________________________
    Adverb    [8]: ____________________________________________
      Noun    [9]: ____________________________________________
      Noun   [10]: ____________________________________________
      Noun   [11]: ____________________________________________
      Noun   [12]: ____________________________________________
A [Noun 0] is a [Adjective 1] [Noun 2] Some puppies can [Verb 3] 1–3lb , 
while larger [Noun 4] can weigh [Adverb 5] to 15–23lb . All [Adjective 6] 
puppies [Verb 7] [Adverb 8] after [Noun 9] A puppy's [Noun 10] [Noun 11] may 
[Noun 12] as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in breeds such as the 
Yorkshire Terrier. In vernacular English, puppy refers specifically to dogs 
while pup may often be used for other mammals such as seals, giraffes, guinea 
pigs, or even rats. 

You can see that there are still two problems.  First, due to the way I do the replacement, all the madlib words fall in the front of the text.  I need to do some sort of counting for multiple words, and randomly select which instance is replaced.  The other issue (that doesn't actually show up here) is that madlib word "k" can occur before word "k-1".  This is really just an annoyance, but it probably should be fixed as well.

• Animal gifs.
• "You stole my tooth! I'm going to eat you with the ones I have left!"
• Miss!
• Red Panda!
• Pokemon.
• I'm sorry.  I was ok with these mega evolutions, and I really like Charizard (although Mega Charizard X looks dumb), but MewTwo is supposed to be basically invincible.  I don't like this.
• Nor this.  Pokemon doesn't need some sort of harsh gritty reality.  If it did, you'd have to start wondering how much Jesse and James pay in doctor bills.
• Doctor Bills.
• This is why this shit is important.
• "He had heard of the online marketplace for insurance that opened on Oct. 1 under the Affordable Care Act. “I just don’t trust it,” said Mr. Tripcony, who has an equal distrust of President Obama. “I don’t like him, and I don’t feel comfortable with anything he’s got to do with.” Mr. Tripcony said he had a better idea for a system to provide health care at a fair price. “I think it should be the same for everybody,” he said. “One big company, whether owned by the government or private.” Informed that he had described the single-payer system that Mr. Obama abandoned when Republican critics called it socialized medicine, he said, “Yeah, I know, it’s crazy.”" You're a fuckhead, Mr. Tripcony.  You're basically the reason we can't have nice things.  "I don't like this guy, even though he's trying to help me, and I'm going to continue to not like him and what he does.  Moreso, my solution to the problem is actually the kind of thing I rail against due to my own ignorance."

Friday: My head hurts

• One of the best scenes.
• Ok, that covered all the spoilers I needed.  I wasn't that interested in it to begin with.
• I also hate hashtags.  Especially when people decide to come up with a stupid hash tag game, and then a bunch of otherwise people I follow decide to spend an hour shitting all over my twitter feed with stupid jokes.
• Meat.
• Depressing story about why you can't have those cute animals as pets.
• I would like to have names.  How would that not be the greatest thing to use in anti-reelection advertisements?

Thursday: On the benefits of not having consumption

"Wait, when were you in the 1800s?"

I wasn't.

"So, Russian prison, then?"

Damn it, no.

"Have you been scaring the peasants such that they've started rumors that you're a vampire?"

Just shut up.  No, this was a test the doctor wanted done, and it turns out that I don't have tb so much that I had to point out the test site to the nurse.  Woo.

Because hot dogs.

• Knitted bird.
• Is it crazy that I'm thinking about buying a hundred pack of Belarussian currency?
• What an asshole.
• Wait...what?  I...I think maybe I'm going to go lie down for a forever.

Wednesday: This may just be links today

And a notebook bear.

• Politics crap.
• This was possibly the best interview I've seen in a long time.
• It's nice that people can realize things are good, but it'd be nice if they didn't spend so much energy fighting it before figuring out that it'll help them as well, not just some hypothetical "dirty poor people."
• Fuck you, Rick Snyder.
• Other stuff.
• Adventure Time Munchkin the Game.  I was half way to finding a place to order it when I discovered it's not being released until next summer.  Crap.
• I want a secret nap space.  I probably would need a home office first, though.
• I was randomly browsing this story, and saw the squirrel candleholders.  I thought those looked cool, so I clicked on the link at the bottom.  $88.  Each.  Holy fuck, that's crazy.

Tuesday: I've apparently not kicked this jetlag yet

Which means I'm super sleepy at night time.  It also means I wake up an hour or more before my alarm goes off.  Stupid grown up sleep schedule.

For various reasons, a lot of the news stories I read today made me think back to my unfinished Lovecraft series, in particular the quote from the letter of Orne to Curwin:

I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up Somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shal not wish to Answer, and shal commande more than you.

• Like this one.  I'm sure you can see the parallels.
• Your move, Republicans.  Democrats have successfully kept the scourge of Rob Schneider movies at bay.  I dare you to try and spin this into a bad thing.
• This is long, but worth the read.  In case you don't, the tl;dr is: Socialism? Yay! Douchebags? Boo!
• I'm having trouble seeing how this is fraud.  Yes, carnies are by definition terrible people.  However, this seems to me to be just buying something instead of fucking around with shitty carnival games.
• This looks delicious.
• Pikachu.
• Have I seen this before?  Have you?  It's a Halloween story about a cat you can read in like zero seconds.
• Interesting discussion of least squares.  I didn't read it all over lunch, as I started reading a different paper, but I want to finish it.  And I looked, and I'm pretty sure this is the author, not the one who wrote the train book.

Monday: So instead, I'm just going to caption a bunch of medieval drawings

Artist: Wait, so I'm confused here.  Do I draw the halo for Dionysius where his head should be, or do I draw it where he's holding his head now?  Fuck it, he gets two halos.

"Dude! Hey! Look! I've got a ball! Fuck you winged jerks! We're totally playing soccer later!"

"No, see, look.  I'm reading the passage, and it clearly says, 'people have two arms.'  I don't know what the fuck is going on with you, but you've got too many.  I mean, I only have two arms.  I'm pretty sure I'm not the freak here."

"Oh come on! Every fucking Thursday it's the same damn thing.  You come rolling in at 3AM, turn on all the fucking lights, and start making noise.  Some of us have to get up on Fridays.  We're not all business majors!"

"I literally have no fucking clue what I'm supposed to be."

•  How did I know that "random saint holding his own decapitated head" is Dionysius?  Because I do.  I've long ago stopped wondering where the random shit I know comes from.
• Careful there, Mr. Panda.
• "It's pinterest that you eat."
• David Bowie in something I don't care to track down tonight.
• I can't wait to see how pissed people are going to be when they discover that people in other states have wonderful health care and they've been screwed out of it.
• Also, have you seen the new healthcare webpage?  I went through the things, and it's all "whoa, hold on there, Captain.  You have insurance, and want to keep it?  Boom. Done.  Go off and enjoy your health insurance.  We're here to help people who want new stuff."  You know, kind of completely the opposite of what those assholes that shut down the government today have been saying.

Sunday: That time of year again

However, this year I didn't feel like spending $300 on dinner, nor did I really feel like cooking.  Since it's been a while since I had Italian, that seemed like the way to go.  So, I went with the Cafe Sistina idea from yesterday.  I'm not going to claim that the ability to make online reservations was an important part of that, but it is always nice to not have to talk to people.  As it turns out, it wasn't super busy anyway, so reservations weren't really needed.

Appetizer:

Funghi con Polenta. 

Italian cremini and wild porcini mushrooms

 in a Gorgonzola cheese sauce over polenta.

The mushroom sauce was very good.  I think a bit more Gorgonzola would have been a good idea, but that's probably just me.  The polenta cakes basically prove that I should just not ever make polenta again, and just let the professionals do it.  Tasty with the sauce, although they lost their good texture as they soaked it up.

Main:

Venison Ragu Pappardelle. 

Fresh wide ribbon pasta sauteed in butter and

 sage topped with a venison ragu.

My main complaint on this one was that it was also full of mushrooms, and if I'd known that was going to be the case, I probably would have gone a different direction to try more not-mushroom things.  I also would have liked more sage flavor.  Sage is one of my favorites, but it seemed to be mostly on vacation in this dish.  In any case, this was good, and had a nice hearty "you should be eating this in the dead of winter as snow falls outside, not in the tropics" flavor.

Dessert:

The tiramisu doesn't get an entry in the online menu.

There's not much to say on this.  Tiramisu is pretty much always pretty good, although this did suffer from the standard tiramisu problem: the bototm layer(s) get overly soaked with liquid, and become soggy.  That's generally just how it goes, and there's not much that can be done to stop it except to make it fresh for each serving (which is crazy, of course).

Reading back over that, I think I come off a bit harsher than I really mean to.  It wasn't the best meal I've ever had.  However, it was also like 1/6 the price.  It's an optimization problem of a kind, and this is a decent solution.  I'll probably have to go back a few more times and try some other dishes.  This easily beats Auntie Pasto's, likely due to the fact that there's a chef presenting a single vision.

Unrelated side note: I still love that tiger.

This would be the place I'd put the giant mosaic of the art at Sistina, but I'm having trouble with the stitching code understanding how to map the 360-degree output.  I'll futz with it tomorrow, and if it still doesn't work, break it up into two or three chunks.

I also have the start of a detailed economics rant that will probably require at least a day to work through the math on.  Woo.  It's like I'm doing blog previews now.

• I like how if you read the first page caption, it basically just says, "We told Frank, one of our art guys, we were doing a story about algae production for future food, and he took that to mean, 'boom-zippo! Space Rocket Farms!'  He started scribbling so fast with those crayons, we just let him finish his idea."
• I regret not having made this pun myself.
• Seriously.  Burning people with my mind.  I promise I'd only use it for good.  I'm coming to the conclusion that setting up a massive mind-burning based empire would be difficult to administer.  Basically, you'd spend all day iterating over lists of people to mind-burn.  However, doing it kind of as a freelance mind-burner, you could just let things pile up, and then pick people out of the newspaper.
• I should have made a cookie pie.
• Flash forward thirty or so years to see the contractor inspecting the first house, and noting that he's going to have to tear up that entire living room to get all the roots of that dead tree out.  Only then is he going to be able to fix the foundation cracks.
• Pandemic.  The board game, played by Wil Wheaton and friends.
• This looks like a fun game, too.

Saturday: Unsuccessful quest for curry-pan

Since getting back to Hawaii, I've had this really messed up sleep schedule where I wake up around 8-9AM. Crazy, I know.  One benefit of this is that I have pretty much all morning to come up with things to do.  Since doughnuts are delicious, I thought about heading out to get some today.  Eventually, this changed to a plan to get curry-pan, partially because the bakery that makes that is closer.

First, however, I wanted to get something for lunch.

Burger time at Honolulu Burger Co.

It was kind of crazy busy there today, so maybe I should stick with my plan to eat lunch at like 3pm on weekends, just to avoid people.

Also, there was a minor bird invasion.

Blah blah blah, other stuff happened that I'm skipping over because I just spent like an hour working on a random script.  I came to the conclusion that if I'm only stitching together two images like the one above, I probably don't need to do all sorts of manual optimization in the panorama code.  A well chosen set of blind defaults would probably work just as well.  So, an hour of documentation reading later, I have a script that makes panoramas from individual images without me having to futz with it.  This is nice, as I can now just scan my images, choose the ones for the days panorama, and send that work off to be done in the background, with only minor gimp-work to be done at the end (crop correction, resizing for blogger, etc.)  Comparing the one from Thursday with the automatic version makes me think this will work just fine.

I had to fix the angle on Thursday's as well, so that's not done here.

Plus I bought a new pillow today.  Woo.  Exciting Saturdays.

Oh, and no curry-pan, as you probably guessed.  I got random doughnuts instead.  I guess I should have just done that to start with today.

• This is stupid.
• The House is stupid.  Seriously, Harry Reid, just stop being nice and start calling people out for being shitbags.  If reason won't work, maybe outright ridicule will.
• Also: Republicans in general are stupid.  For such bible thumping assholes, you'd think they'd sit down and actually read some of the teachings they claim to follow.
• Ok, deep breath.  Here are things with faces that don't have faces.
• I'm thinking I might have dinner here tomorrow.  I've heard about it before, and yes, the decor is totally a gimmick that they use to draw people in.  Still, I haven't really had Italian in a while, so it might be worth it.
• While looking up Italian places, I discovered that this place exists in Ala Moana.  I wonder if it could satisfy the Fazoli's craving I get every so often.

Friday: Lazy days to end vacations are a good idea

It gives a nice slow down from all the travel, and gets everything back into the "being home" concept.

Nothing to add here, so it's a bunny.

• This seems like a bad idea.
• Bunny and squirrel.
• I thought we knew this.
• This looks yummy.
• So basically everyone involved is incompetent.  Good to know.

Thursday: Travelling home

Or, a summary of the food I ate today.

Pizza from Austin airport on the plane to San Francisco.

Not a bad flight, with a reasonable seat.  I probably should have finished the pizza before getting on board, as it was a bit cold.  The problem with this is that they kept taunting that they were going to start boarding.

Side note for travelling through Austin: if there's a big line for the security, just go through the "premium" line.  The guy checking IDs doesn't fucking care, and getting you through is just easier than checking that you belong there.  I also don't understand the point of those stupid backscatter machines if they're not used all the time.  Why do I need to bother with the stupid opt-out shit?

After arriving at SFO, I had just enough time to get from one flight to the next before boarding started.  There was the standard mob of people who didn't understand how boarding numbers work.  I got to my seat, only to discover that the people in front of me were trying to get everyone around them to trade seats so they could sit with their friends.  As far as I could gather, the problem was:

1. These jerks were travelling as a set of three couples.
2. None of them booked together.
3. None of them understood how to change seats prior to check-in.
4. One couple was extra stupid, as they not only were in different parts of the plane, but had different boarding numbers.

I've had to deal with these kind of people before, and I do not understand why they get so angry when you tell them you don't want to switch seats.  I planned ahead, jackass, and figured out where I wanted to sit.  You didn't, so why should I trade my research and planning so you can sit together with people you're going on vacation with?

In any case, some other jackass on the plane decided that he didn't want an upgrade to business class if he couldn't have a window, so I got it instead.

Did you know you can get free mimosas in business class just by asking?  That guy apparently didn't.  Also, since this is America, the free mimosas are technically free bottomless mimosas.  One before breakfast, one with breakfast, and then I decided it was time to sleep.

Sure, it was a middle seat, but when the middle seat is huge, and comes with eight inch wide armrests, it really doesn't matter.  I would have liked a window as well, but this seat comes with free food and a more comfortable place to sleep.

The free food.  Breakfast isn't really something that can shine.  The fruit was decent, as was the strawberry yogurt.  The croissant that came later wasn't terrible, either.  The omelette was ok, although some sort of hot sauce would have helped.  The sausage wasn't great, and the middle thing is some sort of spinach/potato hash.  It wasn't really "bad," but it's not something I would have wanted if I had had a choice.

Sleeping on the plane to Honolulu was really the best use of time, as it meant that I wasn't super tired when I got home, despite not sleeping at all Wednesday night.  That was good, as it allowed me to head out to get groceries.

Also sushi.

I had been thinking about taking friday off as well, and when I got home, I found a good reason to stick to that plan:  They're painting apartment doors this week, and I need to be home tomorrow for that to happen.  Plus, once they're finished, it has to sit open for two hours to dry.  That means I'm going to work from home getting the stuff I sorted out while on vacation checked to see that it's working as designed.

• I guess Barilla pasta is off the grocery list, now.
• Wait, what? NSFW, and "wash your damn clothes, people in the past."
• Penn Ward's birthday cake.
• I kind of wish these interviews had more elaborate answers.  "Yes," isn't really a complete response.  I also don't really think that working 80-90 hours a week is a great plan.

Austin

Quick check in to get my bag checked.

No trouble getting foil wrapped sausage through security.

Easy time just walking through the short security line.

Xray, no opt out needed.

Pizza obtained.

Nearly time to board.

Wednesday: Final day of vacation

Well, to be more accurate, final day of vacation away from home.  I travel all day tomorrow, and then I think I'm taking Friday as a recuperation day.  Yes, a day to recover from the harshness of vacation.  My life is totally difficult and rough.

Another title that I had thought of for today was the following dialogue:

Me: "So, are we friends now?"
19-month-old: (quietly) "No."

I realized yesterday that I hadn't posted any Kimchi pictures.  I am resolving that today.

"LASER DOG, READY FOR ACTION!"

"Food?"

"Food over there?"

Mexican coke and sleepy puppy.

Charging lasers...

"LASERS ACTIVATED!"

 Interlude.

This place has dinosaur shaped cookies.  Dinosaur shaped cookies that kind of look like a bus.

Then we got barbecue, and I had a lot of brisket left over.

 So:

"FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD!"

"FOOODOOFOODOOOOOFFFFFOOOOOOODDDDD!"

• Squirtle squad.
• I dare you to read any of this guy's webpage and not come to the conclusion that he's a terrible person.
• Gnome is run by fucking idiots.
• Idiots.  Idiots everywhere.
• Note for me: find a bigger version of this image so I can read the cut-away.
• Politics.
• Pikachu face butt.
• Omni.  I don't have time to read it.
• This is where you realize that even the people who totally are into all that Tea Party shit are basically hypocrites.
• Here are my notes:
• Page 1 notes that you need to hold the reset button down for five seconds, and that will allow the USER: (blank) PASS: admin account to work again.
• Page 9 shows that you can set up WPA security using a defined shared key.  This should allow the same key currently in use to be retained after the reset.
• Page 15 discusses the "Port Range Forward" option, which can be used to map the world visible IP/port combination to an internal IP/port combination.  For instance, to set up SSH, you would set port 22 to be fowarded to 168.192.1.103.  Then, whenever you want to SSH into the home network, you could simply do an "ssh AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD".

Tuesday: Vacation quickly coming to an end

Which is unfortunate.  It'd be nice to have infinite money to allow for permanent travelling, but that's not likely to happen in the near future.  If only we had a decent government sponsored patronage system to allow scientists to wander and do unrestricted science without having to constantly justify things and apply for new grants.

In any case, dinner tonight was at Jack Allen's Kitchen:

Last remaining chorizo stuffed pork tenderloin.  Tasty yummy.

Alternatively, google's search/assistant/whatever thingy wants me to be aware that there is a Waffle House near by:

A Waffle House that has "waitress" as one of the important points.

• Squirrels.
• Interesting bit on feudal origins.
• Here's a quick flowchart for people in situations like this:
• Are you dealing with being murdered?
• Yes: Make comparison.
• No: Do not make comparison to people who have been murdered.
• Blah blah, fiscal policy, blah blah.
• Helpful bear.
• I can't wait to see how DC fucks this up!

Monday: Too much coffee, too late in the day, too much stuff

Lunch:

Ryu of Japan.  Combination plate.  I like large varieties of food.

Afternoon:

"We'll never tell where the bodies are buried!" "Never ever!"

Crafts:

For reasons.

Late night:

I felt bad not getting proper food when visiting a place late at night to take advantage of the isolation to do work stuff.  Not a terrible sandwich, but tomatoes don't really belong inside paninis.  Still, on the way over, I had a thought that "grilled cheese" would be a good late night work snack, and this covered that base suitably.

Solutions: 

Allowing me to do this (left: original; right: modified reconstruction).

Given image i, such that i = a + n + c, where a is the astronomical signal, n is the random noise, and c is the detector specific corruption, define a new image i' = (a - a') + n + c, where we've removed an estimate of the astronomical signal a'.  This has a Fourier transform F(i') = (A - A') + N + C, using the fact that Fourier transforms are linear.  Assuming a' is a sufficiently suitable proxy for a, and that n is small (specifically that ||N|| << ||F(i')||), this leaves F(i') ~ C.  Constructing a Fourier mask that removes C results in t ~ (a - a') + n + c.  The difference of i' and t provides a clean estimate of c, which can then be removed from i: o = i - (i' - t).

I need to test that photometric properties are retained by this transformation, and I'd like to speed it up some and sort out some of the edge case issues (visible around the blank bands above), but I think this solves the bulk of the issues with this problem.

Links:

• For tomorrow: how to set up a CVS repository.  Yes, I know everyone loves SVN now, but CVS is easier, and it works just fine for projects that aren't likely to need lots of branches and reversions.
• Squirrels.
• If I recall correctly, this image is from the episode of Black Books where Bernard and Manny drink a bunch of really expensive wine.  That reminds me: I should rewatch Black Books again.
• I apparently have this on already?  I don't have the password locking in place, but I can find my phone if I lose it, or make it ring via the internet.  It's like google is that person you IM to have them call your phone because it's hiding between the couch cushions.
• Sleepy Puppies.

Sunday: Lazy Vacation Day

I'm bad about remembering to take pictures of food.

Central Market "Special Chicken".  Asian spices with garlic ginger rice and hoisin sauce.

Also, there's a nice conjunction going on right now.  Venus is bright in the evening sky, and Saturn is just slightly to the north of it.  Saturn doesn't show up in this picture because my cell phone is not a scientific grade camera.

• I think sentence two is where everyone should have just said, "hey, go fuck yourself."
• Gun control.
• Pokemon puns are best puns.
• I really need to read Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
• Various links.
• I thought this was funny and laughed.  You might also think it's funny.  If not, too bad, you already read it.