| (no subject) |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|11:52 am] |
I got back late from bab5 so I missed yesterday's daily update.
I spent most of the day sweeping out Doug's garage, the up and coming glass art studio. The garage was filled with cob webs and scores of spiders, most all of which I removed or killed. Most spiders were "daddy long-legs" or other small and indistinguishable spiders but a few looked like black widows. I don't they they actually were, because I saw no red markings (not that I spent a lot of time looking closely). In any event I disposed of all of them that I could find. I also found a few sources of spider food (insect breeding) that I got rid of; with luck that'll help stave off future spider populations.
Around 1p HSC delivered the two tables, which fit nicely in the garage. I need to move one of them subsequently, now that I've had a chance to look over the space and think about how it should be arranged. I glued the trim on one of the tables back on, as it was starting to peel off. I also discovered that the window in the garage easily opens, although the sash is no longer counterbalanced (the weights are in the frame but the cords have been cut or eaten through). No matter; a fan is destined to sit in the window to provide ventilation.
Sweeping and cleaning ran until early evening and was followed by napping, showering, and finally socializing at bab5. I spent some of the interstices researching torches.
Today I plan to: research torches; order two torches; research kilns; go for a run; hang the vanity above the dresser (I'm in SF today). |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|09:42 am] |
Yay! Bring your kid to work day! |
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| Move D & Jonah Sharp @ Triple Crown |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|02:41 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | International Peoples Gang 0006 | ] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bneely tipped me off to the Move D & Jonah Sharp show, but he ended up skipping it. I went anyway, and man oh man, I could not be happier that I did so!
- Move D! Jonah Sharp!
- They make extremely tasty drinks there
- The crowd was awesome.
- Walking late at night is something I love a lot. The 2½ mile walk was perfect.
For those of you who don't know, Move D is a really prolific German musician - counting both collaborations and solo releases, he's put out around 40 albums since 1992*. He mostly does ambient psy-chill house stuff.
Jonah Sharp used to put our music as Space Time Continuum, which ranged from ambient to IDM to jazzy IDM.
Anyway it was a joint set and was pretty good and pretty dancefloor oriented.
What surprised me the most was that the crowd was not a bunch of pale faced nerdy guys standing around scratching their chins, but a variety of people, more girls than guys, who were all smiling and dancing and being friendly. And the place was packed! I had no idea anyone but me listened to this stuff!
Plus it had been like a million years since I had gone out in San Francisco.
In conclusion: Yay!
* His most frequent collaborator, Pete Namlook, has put out literally hundreds of albums in that same time. |
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| Friday Puzzle #5 - Arrow Sudoku |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|12:01 am] |
My favorite sudoku variation over the last year, which I see far too little of, is Arrow Sudoku. I believe what I like about this type is that there are unknown totals to go along with unknown numbers comprising those totals. Sometimes you cannot identify an exact digit but can say its big or small and even that is enough to slowly narrow down the candidate space. I wrote several Arrow Sudoku for Sudoku Masterpieces - too many actually - and had an extra themed grid that seemed fitting to share here during these summer months. Enjoy.
Rules: Fill in the cells with the digits 1 to 9 so that each digit appears exactly once in each row, column, and bold region. Digits in the circled cells represent the sum of all digits along the path that the arrow travels. Digits can repeat within a sum, but cannot otherwise violate the no repeat rules for a row/column/bold region.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|07:36 pm] |
You know that I give you remarkably few MEMEs, so deal with it.
Concept: Friend gives me five words that they believe define you and you have to explain them. Should you engage me, I have to reciprocate. So, here we go, from Vandringar:
Printing
Ships
New England
Namibia
Sarcasm
( Oy Vey. ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|07:35 pm] |
Oh well, so much for Chicken; didn't even get home from work until 7:00. Soooooo, tired. |
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| Anthrocon 2009 from the Inside |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|09:39 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Ok, con report con report con report. Gotta write it before I forget everything. Right, ready, set, go...
Wednesday
Worked late throughout the week so that I could leave early. Uneventful drive. Wandered around being nosy for a bit, then went out for dinner way late - everything was closed. Originally considered taking the T to a euro bistro, but the city was scary and empty, so we detoured to Pizza Parma instead. Eech, no thank you, not again. Fries on salad, bleah! (It's a Pittsburgh thing). Saw the charity non-wine & cheese thing on the news.
Thursday
Got up early and put on nice-wear for the morning meetings with the Westin & DLCC. Had hoped to stay dressed through till dinner, but got sidetracked setting up the message boards and putting out flyers. Changed before I got too sweaty.
Spent most of the afternoon leisurely assembling 45 way-too-big raffle boxes (note to self: next year, cans) in the Dealers' Room and chased the media around a little with xydexx.
Dinner with the GoHs was lovely as usual. Not only didn't the restaurant have red velvet cake for dessert, but they were sold out of the peanut butter "toadstool", dammit. Staff meeting followed, then [something], then bed.
Friday
My staff meeting in the Dealers' Room at 9am. Note to self: charity drop-off table outside Dealers Room bad idea. No one used it, but rather waited near it till the room opened. Skipped lunch collecting raffle/auction items. Note to self: insist on earlier drop-offs.
Lupus in Tabula at 7pm. Two games, went ok. I was depressed about things for some reason and moped over a salad at the Fish Market. They were sold out of the peanut butter "toadstool" - again.
Sat outside the dance for a while, then bed.
Saturday
More charity table. mrianti got us Arby's, yay. Auction went well at 4pm, good sales. Had to talk the Dorsai into letting us stay to draw raffle winners after the Dealers' Room closed - they wanted to kick us out. Note to self: plan accordingly for arduous ticket counting on Saturday. Recruited charity volunteers and Dealers' Room staff to help.
Tried to hike to Big Mama's House Of Soul for dinner, but furries had eaten all the food! Proprietor: "They destroyed us". Friggin' locusts. Hiked back to Golden Palace for mediocre chinese buffet.
Dance at midnight. Was terrified of set quality, and faced with unfamiliar equipment. Surprise: set was very well-received. I'd originally been planning to quit the ballroom after this year, but we'll see how it goes. Planning for a downtempo room next year, anyway.
Stopped by the cheetah lawn party. Tried to avoid staring at Jaspian. Talked with djdragonboy and sat quietly like I do at any party.
4am, time for bed.
Sunday
Nothing left but prize-pickup. Six or seven items weren't claimed - good stuff, too! Oh well, more money for the charity when they're re-raffled next year. Note to self: Sunday very boring!
Closing ceremonies, whoopee. Staff dinner, yummy. Wandered aimlessly till bed.
Monday
Breakfast with board. Meetings meetings meetings. Then home. |
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| Someone at Mozilla Foundation needs to be fired |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|03:24 pm] |
Somebody at Mozilla decided they need lots of 'true' random numbers.
My patience for this subject completely ran out about five years ago, so this post is going to show a complete lack of diplomacy. I would like to emphasize, in advance, that this is my honest, reasoned opinion, not said in anger, and that if you ask my opinion again in the future I'll say the exact same thing.
Once a computer has collected a small number of 'true' random bits (maybe it's 128, maybe it's 256, but regardless it's small) there's no need whatsoever for it to block on collecting more 'random' numbers. A pseudorandom number generator based on AES will be able to generate random numbers based on that seed until the end of the universe and noone constrained by the laws of physics and math will ever be able to tell the difference between that and 'true' random numbers. This is extremely well established cryptography. To require 'true' random numbers is, to use an apt analogy, wankery. It does not, and cannot, do anything to improve security, and it mostly just causes huge amounts of pain. It is (and I repeat myself, because I have a hunch people will think I'm glossing over some nuance here) of no benefit whatsoever.
My advice to the Mozilla foundation (and again, this is my reasoned opinion, not said in anger, and I won't be changing my mind later): find out who was responsible for this policy of requiring lots of 'true' random numbers, and fire them. Fire them today. They have demonstrated gross incompetence, a total lack of understanding of the very most basic concepts in security.
Some people might think that if I knew more about who was behind this and what their specific motivations are, then that might change my mind. That is incorrect. The security field is filled with people who to non-experts seem very impressive and knowledgeable, especially when they're advocating, and even moreso demanding, very painful and difficult things in the name of security. Most of these people are frauds. I have had it with paying homage to the concept of impartiality when discussing these peoples's opinions. If someone spouts a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo to bring the conversation to a place which a lay person has trouble understanding, then they may be able to make the argument be based on pure rhetoric, but gross incompetence is still gross incompetence, and despite having found an effective way to bullshit their way through, they're still wrong.
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| San Francisco |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|08:12 am] |
The awesome thing about San Francisco is the way that when you walk* to work, everyone on the street looks you in the eye, smiles, and wishes you a good morning.
*Walking to work also awesome. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|12:01 am] |
Another morning of sleeping in. Lazy to do, but by the time I'm back in the south bay it's nearly noon. Gotta get back to waking up earlier.
Toured Costco with an eye toward finding a workbench. No workbenches were to be found. I picked up a 12-pack of canned tuna but didn't see anything else in the entire warehouse I really wanted (the smoked salmon looked tasty but I won't eat it all before it goes bad) so I abandoned my cart and tuna and headed home. I made my first home-cooked meal today! Not much cooking involved: just poured a can of baked beans over rice Melinda had made a few days ago. Still, tasty, and it didn't cost $8 for the meal. Dinner, too, was at home, in the form of a frozen pizza.
After pursuing many dead ends for a workbench (Craigslist, but its search doesn't work well; Home Depot, but they don't know what "workbench legs" are; Sears, but they want $400 for a simple table) I went back to Halted and bought the tables (plural) that I had seen yesterday. I asked for, and received, a price of $50 less than what was tagged (and that was already $50 less than their original price), but opted for Halted delivering them Thursday, at a cost of $50. So, for $240 I'm getting two tables, taxed and delivered, arriving in about 12 hours at Doug's house. One table will be the work table, with torches and a need for heat resistance, and the other will be for non-torch work (perhaps for a kiln, for example). Now I just need to clean up Doug's garage to make room for it.
On my way back from Halted I stopped at Jo-Ann's fabrics to buy what I'd need in order to make a light tent: a structure for photographing glass art (or anything else smallish) that diffuses the light very broadly. I bought two lengths of backdrop cloth, a black satin and a red crushed velvet (the crushed velvet looks great), and two lengths of diffusing cloth (a yard of each of these four). After some thinking about how to build a structure to hold up the cloth and such it struck me to just use a plastic storage bin. $7 at OSH found me a very nice 12" cubic storage box. Open on the front, wrapped on all sides with one of the nylon diffusing cloths, and inside one of the backdrops. I held the backdrop in place with magnets, placed inside a box as a pedestal and it actually looks pretty neat, if I may say so myself. I took several photos of my and Melinda's most recent glass in the box and they seemed to turn out okay. I used two 60W lamps, one on either side, and a fluorescent lamp on the top. It's not perfect -- a photographer's studio would get much better diffuse light -- but good enough for any work I'm going to do.
I caught up on a four-day backlog of posting the blown glass work to flickr and ended the day with making some salad for lunches for Melinda and me tomorrow.
On deck for tomorrow: work at Doug's garage. Cleaning, removing cobwebs and active webs, making room for and receiving the workdesks. Research into torches and order a hose + regulator kit. |
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| Glass photos uploaded |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|10:08 pm] |
I've uploaded photos of glass from my and Melinda's four most recent days of lampworking; see them starting here. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
Ok, going to Crack Chicken tomorrow for the first time. If you're there, be nice and say hi! Part of my personal improvement plan... or something. |
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| At con |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|03:45 pm] |
I arrived at con, after navigating a maze of sidewalk closures in the 4 blocks between the light rail station and the hotel.
I am on the 27th floor of the hotel, which means that if there weren't these other two huge towers in the way, I would be able to see across a huge part of Baltimore:
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
Slept in late today and then dove in to some phone calls (setting up and canceling appointments, checking for open hours for some glass suppliers). Starting in SF I headed to San Anselmo to look at what was for sale at a glass studio that was closing. Turns out the woman at the studio does mostly stained glass so didn't have anything I'd be interested in, tool-wise. The studio sells work from many artists and it had a bunch of really nice boro vessels. I was impressed.
I ventured across the San Rafael bridge to Richmond where I visited C&R Loo and American Laboratory Supply; see earlier post for details. I bought $225 worth of glass between the two places and am pretty happy with the transactions. I stopped in at the Crucible to pick up my and Melinda's work from the class two weekends ago. I recognized my vessels but only vaguely the fluted feet. I chose one that looked somewhat familiar and two more that were likely Melinda's.
I skipped my plan to visit Endgame because it was 2:30, I hadn't had lunch, and I had a 5p appointment in Palo Alto. I headed home, stopping by Piazza's to buy a sandwich (smoked salmon). Out soon again to Tap Plastics to buy storage tubes for the newly purchased glass and then to diPietro Todd to reduce the mangy mop on my head to something more stylish. Dinner again from Piazza's (salad) then home to play some RFTG with Trisha and Wei-Hwa and to playtest a new game Wei-Hwa's developing. I was grumpy at first because I didn't understand all the rules but the second play through (we abandoned the post hoc "practice" game) made much more sense and was more fun. Wei-Hwa also gave me two locks from Tharsis for use at Doug's garage.
Back to the city to wash some dishes and to sleep.
On deck tomorrow: revisit Halted to look at their workbenches; visit Sears to look at their overpriced workbenches; cook pasta or rice or something so I don't need to go out for every meal; photograph the glasswork from the last four sessions; research torches and torch kits. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|09:07 pm] |
So this is how fucked the media is. Michael Jackson, a great singer who probably molested a few children dies and there is non-stop wall to wall media coverage. Robert McNamara, indirectly responsible for the deaths of over five million southeast asians and 58,159 American soldiers dies, and absolutely nothing. Like him, hate him, or at least try to understand him, we all deserved a bit more coverage about this man and certainly a dialogue as to who he was what what that period in time meant. |
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| Glass shopping |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|03:46 pm] |
I visited C&R Loo, Inc and American Laboratory Supply this afternoon to pick up some colored and clear glass. For a lampworker they're like being in a candy store. C&R is a big warehouse entirely filled with glass, with boro, soft, sheets, and cane glass, and with tools and equipment. Jamie showed me to the aisle with Northstar and Glass Alchemy colors and let me fill my basket (an array of paper towel rolls). American Laboratory Supply is more functional than warehouse: a half dozen people inside were producing scientific glassware for who knows what, but making a lot of it. They have a few cabinets (with custom made latches - a true tell that the elderly fellow who helped me has been there for a while) with the colored cane, including some pre-made latticino. I bought some of the pre-made stuff; it's neither as nice or as consistent as what Melinda and I are making but I wanted to try it out. ALS has every type of tubing imaginable, too, so I bought some Contourax at 25mm and 30mm (I bought 40mm from C&R) and 25 and 28mm in black, blue, lavender, and green. Should be plenty to play with. C&R is sort of expensive: $55/lb for the cane and $10/lb for the clear tube. ALS charged $40/lb for the cane and $6/lb for most of the tubing, except the black which was $15 for the piece (1500mm length). In comparison, Arrow Springs charges $7/lb if you order more than 10lbs ($8/lb if you don't) for all clear and $27-$34/lb for the cane if you buy more than 1lb (Arrow Springs also charges for shipping but they're really fast).
So I have many pounds of glass in my living room now and need to cut it down to workable lengths. This also reminds me that I need some storage shelves for the glass workroom. |
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| Ludology in City of Heroes |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|11:30 am] |
City of Heroes has had some interesting issues with its gameplay, involving a character named Twixt using some tactics which made everybody hate him.
Several years ago I happened to be seated next to the designer of City of Heroes at an event where he won something. He was a pudgy guy, wearing big round glasses, with a white city of heroes t-shirt and a blue cape on. We got into a conversation about his game, and I asked what it was that made it compelling, and he said that it's every kid's fantasy of being a superhero, and it was very obvious that he'd based the game's design on his own. I asked him if City of Heroes is compelling as a pure abstract game, and the interesting response was that he didn't understand the question. After a few minutes of conversation he got what I was asking, and his answer, which really perplexed me at the time, was that it was a good question, but he didn't know.
Consider a game with the following semantics: You sit, unmoving, for two hours, with no user feedback, no buttons to push, nothing, completely passive, while the game plays out in front of you, exactly the same way as it would for anybody else. This sounds like a terrible game, but it's exactly what movies are, and movies are very popular and get little criticism that they're terrible games.
The Twixt problem was caused not so much by any one person behaving unreasonably as the game engine having a problem. There's a battle tactic which is quite effective but has the effect of wiping out an enemy without even giving them a chance to play, making it not much fun for them and it doesn't even get much credit for you. Because City of Heroes is more fantasy than game, players have a convention of not using this tactic, because that maximizes the fun of play. This is done at the expense of an individual's success taking the game as a sport, but since the game isn't a sport, people don't worry about that too much. Real sports don't involve dressing up as superheroes (except for figure skating, but that isn't a real sport). What really should be done is that the rules should be modified so that the particular tactic isn't so nasty. It's a general rule of game design that all players should get a chance to play and have fun, even if they aren't very good, and tactics which allow a better player to win without the weaker player even having a chance to try to retaliate are no fun.
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| Desert |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|08:03 am] |
I just spent four days in the desert. It was great. Highlights:
- Bumping into Dana on the way out as I was on the way in, and getting out to the ranch to check on Gigstuff.
- III and M indulging me by bringing out the vast collection of stuff I needed to feel "right."
- Girl Nest!
- Fizzball!
- Jovino's awesome spinning.
- Ride on top of Rpoodle's car!
- Ridin' in Dan's truck!
- Frogbat!
- Bootie at Fandango!
- Bar Pockets!
- No hangover!
- Beer in the morning in the shelter of a big truck.
- People's generosity in sharing a huge amount of water with me when I apparently had an "I gotta drink 4-gallons of water" afternoon.
- Trego hot springs.
- The Mithratron.
- Seeing the way people came together to help B when his car blew a head gasket.
- The silence on the last night.
- Jet and Roxy sharing corned beef hash.
I got a little cranky on Sunday afternoon because I was hungry and couldn't make myself eat (note to self: eat bigger breakfasts and force a couple cliff bars down during the afternoon regardless). It's hard to believe that so much awesome could be packed into that few days. One more trip and then I can be home with my honey! |
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| Day 1 |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:50 pm] |
Some errands, some idle time activities today. Got my car serviced. Walked through Halted and Weird Stuff and bought some vinyl aprons that looked sort of neat (and at $1.50 each seemed worth the price). Saw a dog run away from Petsmart. 8( Deposited two checks and $31 of coins at the bank, and bought $60 of quarters. Used some of those quarters to run two loads of laundry. Took a nap. Visited Madco to learn about tanked oxygen. Visited Home Depot looking for a work table, then headed to Acorn's house for Build night. Lunch was at a deli waiting for my car to be done and dinner was salad from the grocery store.
On deck tomorrow: visiting glass shops in Richmond and San Jose. |
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