Pull My eFinger

Another Update On The House (Pics)

2008-10-06 00:00:21 GMT

Base molding makes all the difference. I had no idea it makes a room look so much nicer! At this point, in certain rooms, the house from three months ago would not be recognized as the same house even if you put them side-by-side.

My Quick Thoughts On $700 Billion

2008-10-02 02:11:11 GMT

You reap what you sow. After 20 years of voting incompetence in to office, the citizens of the United States finally see the results: a stinking pile of refuse slightly resembling an economy. Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter. Both parties mucked this one up badly, and both were complicit.

How is it we elect these people in to office year after year? That's a tough question to answer. Seems like the answer resides somewhere in the average attention span of the average citizen. We're a nation largely collectively distracted by pop music stars and pro football players. And where that doesn't work, we're a nation divided by same-sex marriage and gun control. All of those issues are small potatoes compared to the economy. Can't we all agree? Let's put those issues aside. We need to elect people in to office who care about the country and have the capacity to undo the damage caused by 20 years of incompetence, with a minimal amount of pain.

Who might that be? Most likely somewhere other than D and R on your ballot.

I can't believe the same people who caused the current economic crisis, are the same people who failed to see it coming, are the same people who denied its arrival, are the same people who are responsible for fixing it! Their fix is to print $700 billion? And they say the repercussions for not selecting their fix would be terrible. I have to question that.

What's a good analogy for this? How about this one... while you're walking the streets, a mugger points a gun at you and tells you to give him $700 billion no questions asked, or else something terrible will happen.

No, here's a better analogy... a mugger calls you on the phone and tells you to meet him on street X in 20 years so that he can mug you. Twenty years go by, and while you're walking on street X, a mugger points a gun at you and tells you to give him $700 billion no questions asked, or else something terrible will happen.

Let me try again. An even better analogy... a mugger calls you on the phone and tells you to meet him on street X in 20 years so that he can mug you. Twenty years go by, and while you're walking on street X, a mugger points a gun at you and tells you to give him $700 billion no questions asked, or else something terrible will happen immediately. The mugger also says that even if you do give him $700 billion, he'll find you in 20 more years and something even more terrible will happen at that time.

Firstly, you're stupid for walking on street X. But because you're already on street X, what's your best recourse? You can give the mugger $700 billion and hope he doesn't show himself in 20 years time. Or you can give him not a dime and hope something terrible is at least survivable.

I'm writing this to say we should not print $700 billion. It's a very bad idea. Printing more money causes inflation. Inflation causes your money to be worth less. Your money is the dollar. The world as a whole will lose confidence in the dollar. Your quality of life relative to the world will decrease relative to the confidence decrease in the dollar.

Not printing $700 billion also causes problems. The problem is there's no money to pay off the debt we as a populace have accumulated the previous 20 years. There will be loads and loads of loan defaults and failed loan institutions (banks). People will lose money. It will really suck for a year or a few years. But it will not suck permanently.

Please, please, please. Do not support the printing of $700 billion.

The same people who caused this problem, are the same people fixing it! Stop for a moment and calculate the odds that maybe the same people are creating yet a larger problem.

Please, please, please. Do not vote in to office the people who caused the problem. The people in office are at best incompetent. This much has been proven. And I don't mean the people currently holding office. I mean the people who are currently holding office, and anyone who has held office anytime in the last 20 years, and anybody associated with them or their power base.

The Worst Sales Job Ever

2008-09-25 00:41:58 GMT

This is bar none the worst sales job I have ever seen. When advertising a kitchen oven, the top two things you don't want to mention would probably be:

The oven is large enough for your kids to crawl inside, and
The oven's door lock will prevent them from escaping.

Now, I'm not sure which is worse, #1 or #2. But either way they're both really bad!

The LG LRE30453ST Electric Range at Vann's

"big enough to fit two plump German children inside" ... "the door lock would be perfect for keeping them inside."

Obviously, the description's intent is to elicit humor. But that's just not something you want to be humorous about!

My Review Of The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

2008-08-25 01:01:30 GMT

Opening ceremonies. Incredible. Thousands of volunteers in the arena wearing colorful outfits. Will we find the outfits in Wal Mart stores here in the States?

Americans dominate swimming. Someone won eight gold medals. I can't remember his name. Michael-something. If only NBC mentioned his name every 4 minutes instead of every 5 minutes I might remember.

Americans and Chinese dominate gymnastics. Millions of Chinese kids, now 8-10 years of age and inspired by the 2008 Chinese domination, will dominate the 2012 Summer Olympics when they turn... 16?

Speaking of gymnastics, they'd be a lot cooler if the IOC could somehow integrate hungry crocodiles.

Americans and Jamaicans dominate Track & Field. Question: if swimmers can have races in four different types of strokes, can't sprinters have races in four different types of runs? I want to see the 4x100 meter bear crawl.

Chinese dominate Ping Pong. OK, I really enjoyed watching the Ping Pong finals. I admit I don't really understand the rules. About the only thing I was certain of was a Chinese person would win the gold. And the silver.

Americans dominate team sports. Except Men's Soccer. Where each team can have two specialty players. Other nations bring specialty players like Ronaldhino. The Americans bring specialty players like... Brian McBride?

Closing ceremonies. The opening ceremonies, with the computer-generated fireworks and the 100-foot projected Blue Screen of Death, were much cooler. Speaking of death: Jimmy Page? It's a good thing a bus drove him in to the arena, because I don't think he could have walked it.

Update On The House (Pics)

2008-07-28 01:13:53 GMT

Lots of work on the house the past several weeks. Thanks to family and friends, the progress has been quickly paced so far.

- All the holes in the walls are gone
- We have a new roof
- Termites are all dead (knock on wood -- pun intended)
- Nearly all interior walls are painted
- Hardwood floor is nearly complete
- Garage is done

The place is really rounding in to shape quite nicely. It's beginning to look and feel more like a home that a construction zone. For example, today marked the first time that I thought about handing a picture on a wall. Ultimately, nothing was hung. But mentally it just felt nice to briefly think about it.

Next up on the (long) list to be items to be completed:

- Bedroom carpets
- Side fence
- Kitchen remodel
- Guest bathroom remodel
- Window replacement
- Exterior paint

After all that's done it's not so clear what would be next on the list, but I'm sure there are lots of smaller items.

Here are a few before-and-after pictures. The "after" pictures were taken tonight with no sun and barely any lighting, so please excuse the underexposures.

Old living room:

New living room:

Old family room:

New family room:

Old hallway:

New hallway:

Old garage (yes, the garage contained some mysterious room of an unknown use!)

New garage:

I'm Not Dead Yet

2008-07-08 01:51:48 GMT

It's been quite a while since my last post! Every night I intend to write, but instead I opt for a few extra minutes of sleep. (Probably tomorrow morning I'll be wishing I had my the same choice tonight.)

Last month we bought a house! To put it mildly, it's a fixer-upper. In the last month we've gone from cold sponge baths, to cold showers, to hot showers. From basketball-sized holes in the walls, to freshly painted walls. From 20-year-old carpet, to hardwood floors. Yet there's still so much to do. Example - we have no appliances.

If you're so inclined, you can peruse the pre-move-in picture gallery. I'll have updates photos soon. In the meantime, I just want to let everyone know I'm not dead.

Fry's Electronics: Home Of The 0.50 Cent Hot Dog

2008-05-19 01:31:09 GMT

There are two things funny about this picture. One is that Fry's Electronics is selling hot dogs. Two is that the list price for said hot dog plus a soda is 0.50 cents.

0.50 cents as in one-half of one cent. 0.50 cents as in $0.005. Meaning you could purchase two hots dogs and two sodas for exactly one cent.

Probably what they really mean is 50 cents. But I'm not sure what Fry's mislabeled price policy is exactly. Do they honor the mislabeled price? Sadly, we'll never know because the hots dogs were sold out prior to my arrival. Nothing draws the geek crowd in like the promise of cheap food. Forget about healthy food. We just want cheap food.

Hot dogs? Disgusting. Oh, they're fifty cent hot dogs? Then I'll have two.

Perfect logic there.

New Links On The Left

2008-05-12 00:13:03 GMT

It's been a while since I updated any of the links on the left pane.

One I'll be adding today is the Phoenix mission to Mars. Phoenix will be arriving at the north polar region of Mars two weeks from now. Phoenix will join the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, now four years old, on Mars. Quite impressive that we'll have two rovers, one stationary laboratory, and one satellite at Mars simultaneously.

I'll also be adding a link to WinRegSh. I posted about WinRegSh in a previous post. WinRegSh crested a few weeks ago at the 380th most downloaded application on SourceForge. That's much better that I thought it would do. I'll be releasing a new version today.

Flying Cars And Skyways: A Brief Mathematical Analysis

2008-04-30 02:00:20 GMT

If you had the option, would you drive a flying car? By "flying car" I mean some sort of flying device that can transport at least two people several tens of miles in the air.

I'll leave the engineering specifics of it alone. (Does it have jet engines like a plane? Does it have rotors like a helicopter?) The design doesn't really matter for the purposes of this post. There's something else that bothers me whenever the topic of flying cars arises.

What bothers me is the concept of highways in the sky - or skyways. It seems everyone assumes the arrival flying cars would necessitate the construction of skyways. Skyways would be where drivers flock toward to assist the driver in achieving a higher rate of speed. The theory is skyways would have strict rules that allow for the safe accumulation of speed.

My contention is there would be no need for skyways. My contention is the sky would be so devoid of flying cars such that collisions would be almost an afterthought. There would be no need for strict rules. My reasoning having two points:

The area allowed per car would increase cubically
The time required to reach a destination would decrease by about half in most cases.

The first point can be described like this. On a typical circa 2008 highway, suppose there are 10 cars per lane on a 100 meter stretch. There are 10 meters per car. This can be described as "bumper to bumper" gridlock. In a similarly coagulated flying car world, those 10 cars would have 1,000,000 meters³ to divide between them. That's 100,000 meters³ per flying car. On edge, the nearest flying car to your flying car would be 46.4 meters distant.

But it's better than that. There would not be 10 flying cars in your space. This is the second point. No stop lights. No stop signs. No left-hand turns. The time required to reach a destination is far less with a flying car. Which means you get out of the sky faster. Which means there are fewer cars in transit per unit time. I estimate a 75% reduction in cars in transit per unit time, and 95% during peak use times ("rush hour"). To be conservative, I'll say 50%. Note this does not require an increase in speed - normal speeds are to be assumed.

Now the nearest flying car to your flying car is 58.5 meters distant. This assumes worst case traffic. The sort of traffic that brings circa 2008 highways to "bumper to bumper" conditions.

Now if you've got 58.5 meters between your flying car and the nearest other flying car, I think my contention that there is no need for skyways does hold.

There are still some issues I'm avoiding. Such as a non-even distribution of flying cars in the 1,000,000 meters³. And flying cars flying in opposite directions in the 1,000,000 meters³. Avoiding buildings. But really I think those holes in my contention can be repaired pretty easily with the use of some collision avoidance software in the flying car. If you give a computer 58.5 meters to work with, I'm confident it can avoid a collision.

So, in summary: no skyways.

The Return Of Proposition J

2008-04-16 01:40:40 GMT

It's been four years since Proposition J was passed in Mountain View. If you'll recall, I posted about Proposition J at that time.

Proposition J expired two months ago. Back up for ratification in 2008, it's being resurrected under a different letter: C. I probably wouldn't have noticed about Proposition C until a week or two before the election, except I received an unsolicited phone call from the C staff. Ever the diligent voter, I pressed the matter.

I asked what happened to Proposition J. What happened to the funds raised by Proposition J. Were the funds spent appropriately. Who was on the oversight committee. Those sorts of questions. Probably not what the called had expected.

So it took a few days, but I got an answer to all of my questions. The breakdown of all the money raised by Proposition J during 2006-07 can be found online. The members of the oversight committee are also listed.

I have to admit I am impressed. I wish that all money spent by a government could be listed so clearly.

Now, some of Proposition J's proceeds go toward stuff I am not so sure was worth spending for (legal costs: $69k). But at least it is clearly listed, and I can be almost certain none of the proceeds for 2006-07 went directly in to some third party's pocket book.

That's not to say I'll be supporting the kiddie font signs sure to pop up in lawns around Mountain View. They'll probably irk me just like J's. (Note that the web site already has kiddie font!)