Dan Among Den

« July 2004 | Main | September 2004 »

August 31, 2004

Finally, a meaningful Presidential poll

In an earlier blog, I complained about the uselessness of most Presidential polls.

Is it just me, or is anyone else annoyed with the futility of most presidential polls? They all state their results in the form of "Candidate A leads Candidate B 54% to 46% with a 3% margin of error." Like that means anything in electoral mechanics. You'd think they would have learned after 2000.

I want to see a poll that says, "Among likely voters, Candidate A leads Candidate B 311 to 227 electoral votes with a 58 vote margin of error due to close races in states X, Y, and Z." I know it would be more expensive -- arguably 51 times as expensive -- but it would at least have a meaningful result.

It looks like someone else thought this was a good idea too, and actually produced an electoral vote poll. It's been fluctuating a lot this past week with several states too close to call, but at present, it's showing Bush with 280 (enough to win), Kerry with 242, and 16 too close to call.

Here's another. It's currently showing Bush at 284 over Kerry at 254 with nothing up for grabs.

It's a lot closer than it looks, of course. 35% of Bush's EV's are in states that are barely his, while only 18% of Kerry's EV's are in that category.

Completely apart from the politics and what's at stake in this election, I'm just excited to see someone putting out data that actually means something in our Electoral College system.

Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (174)

August 30, 2004

First steps...

My little lady took her first steps this morning.

[panic]OH... MY... GOD!!![/panic]

Photography by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (389)

August 29, 2004

Visited a friend today...

I visited a neighborhood friend of mine today, Matt. He is recuperating from a near-death experience that would have made an excellent entry for a recent Friday Five topic. However, at the time I was writing the post, I didn't know about it yet, and when I did find out later that day, it was not at all clear that it would be just a "near" death experience.

I'll spare you the really gory details (though I was not), but sufficed to say that a backyard power tool launched a small branch up through Matt's leg, eighteen inches into his abdomen. If you're squirming now, be thankful I've left out most of the details. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was already very near death, having lost a tremendous amount of blood from two large veins that had been severed.

Fortunately, we have a fireman, Rafael, who lives in the neighborhood. I don't know if he got paged or if he was just listening to the dispatch radio channel, but he heard about it and got over there before the ambulance did. He quickly understood how bad of shape Matt was in and immediately called for a med-evac helicopter. It was based at a small rural town out near where I live, and it arrived very quickly and air-lifted him to the downtown trauma hospital in Austin. If Rafael hadn't made that call, Matt never would have reached the hospital alive.

Matt was in surgery for six hours and went through fifteen pints of blood, which is quite a bit when you consider the human body typically has only eight. Even afterwards, they couldn't completely close him up because the amount of fluids they'd had to pump in had swollen his internal tissues so much. They could only pack him off and keep him in the ICU for another day before the surgery could really be completed. He was in a coma for a few days and in the ICU for over a week total.

That was two weeks ago today. I heard about it that Friday afternoon via an email from Rafael with phrases like "critically injured", "sedated coma", and "life support". I hate to say it, but just based on that email, I pretty much concluded that he was a goner. But at the same time, I didn't want to admit that. I was reminded of Lance Armstrong and how his previous racing team fired him when he was diagnosed with cancer, even going so far as to cut off his medical insurance. I remember him speak of the rage he felt that they had already concluded that he was going to die. So I held out some hope. I went down to the hospital on Saturday to see him, but I missed the ICU visiting hours by about fifteen minutes. I couldn't find his wife in the waiting area, so I didn't know what to think.

On Sunday, another neighbor dropped by and told me all the gory details as well as the good news that Matt was out of the coma and was recognizing friends and family, alleviating many of the concerns about brain damage. On Tuesday, I did get to see him downtown. He'd been transferred to a normal room, and I arrived just as six of his coworkers did. We all talked and cheered him on. It's clear that he's much-loved at work -- they donated over two hundred pints of blood in his name. I could see then that he was going to make it. He had the same spark in his eyes as always and showed the same fighting spirit he's had in the year I've known him.

He was sent home on Thursday, and I stopped by his house to visit him today. I was filled with sudden guilt when I saw that he had answered the door himself, wrapped in a bed sheet, toga-style, but he invited me in and fetched a robe. We spoke for about half an hour, going over various neighborhood events -- we're both involved in a project -- and our various landscaping plans. He was tired, but he was doing well. I suspect he'll be back at work within another week or two.

Don't count out the fighters.

And to all the firemen, paramedics, and med-evac pilots: you rock!

Narrative by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (648)

August 28, 2004

A message from your dentist

Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (550)

August 27, 2004

Friday 5: Where's a Vulcan mind-meld when you really need it?

If I'm remembering correctly, this week's question came from Adam:

You've been given the choice of having 5 memories removed from the world's collective memories. If you forget them, it will be as if they never happened. Which 5 do you choose?

It’s tempting to use such a chance to cast huge changes upon our world. After all, you could make us believe space travel is completely safe by wiping out memories from Apollo I to Columbia. You could alter our perception of history by making us all forget Hiroshima or the Holocaust. You could even wipe out whole religions by making everyone forget Christ’s crucifixion or just by making L. Ron Hubbard forget his bet with Asimov. But for good or bad, these things shaped the world we live in, and I think we need to remember them. So instead, I am left with excising certain memories that were just really annoying.

1. Monica’s semen-stained, navy blue dress: I mean, who saves this kind of thing as a souvenir? This would only happen in the government. In the private sector, our interns swallow.
2. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction: I didn’t choose this for some nudity taboo or to erase all the FCC and network hand-wringing that followed. Rather, I chose this to save the entire generation of prepubescent boys whose first confirmed “booby sighting” was a 37-year old breast squished in a bad bustier and decorated with the gaudiest body piercing seen outside of a biker festival. I fear for what this has done to their sexual psyche. In another decade, will they look back on pictures of Cindy Crawford or Elle Macpherson and go “ewww, those tits are so rounded and unmangled – how could you ever think that was attractive?”
3. Star Trek V: In my world, Paramount just decided to skip from IV to VI, figuring that five was as unlucky for sequels as thirteen is for hotel floors.
4. Your choice of the “trial of the century”: OJ, the Menendez brothers, etc. The Laci Peterson case is in contention, though it is now technically a new century. To everyone outside the jury room and the immediate families, “Don’t you people have lives?!!”
5. Joe Theisman’s compound fracture: I really include this for MAW’s sake. If we’d all forgotten about this, I wouldn’t be calling him “chicken leg” every time he announced a game.

Honorable Mention, “Achey Breaky Heart”: Fortunately, this one has largely died on its own, but during its day, I couldn’t turn on a radio or go out for BBQ or pizza without hearing that *#&%@ song!! Your achey breaky heart my ass – I’ll grind up your aorta and put it on my omelet, you little… (deep breath) Whew, nearly undid six years of hypnotherapy there.

Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (304)

August 25, 2004

Getting ready for Halloween

Halloween is still a couple of months away, but it's never too early to start lining up your child's costume. This year little Dick and Jane won't be limited to such standbyes as Batman or Xena. No, this year send your kids out in their very own Pimp and Ho costumes. Yes, that's right, for less than the cost of a back-seat blowjob, your child can add new meaning to the phrase "trick or treat" as they prance through the neighborhood as common streetwalkers or their misogynist employers.

Good night folks -- I need a shower now.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (638)

Eyes

I've been messing with Photoshop this evening...

Photography by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (417)

August 24, 2004

Russian 9/11?

It's too early to say just what's happend in Russia in the last few hours, but they've had two commercial aircraft go down. One is offically crashed while the other is just missing but believed crashed. Both took off from Moscow, and contact with both was lost at about the same time.

Now it's been reported that the one still missing got off a hijack alert before disappearing.

A missing Russian passenger plane Tu-154 with more than 40 passengers and crew on board sent a hijack alert before disappearing from radar screens late on Tuesday over southern Russia, Interfax news agency said.

It quoted an unnamed government source on Wednesday as saying that the alert was received as the plane was flying from Moscow to the Black sea resort of Sochi.

Was this a failed terrorist attack 9/11 style? As I said, it's too early to tell, so in the true 24-hour news channel tradition, I'm speculating wildly with virtually no information. So without further deley, let's go to our bank of experts to tell us the long term geopolitical ramifications of this...

Update (8/25)==> Russians are now claiming that it's likely just a coincidence that the planes lost contact at about the same time. They're not ruling out a terrorist action, especially with Chechnya's elections coming this Sunday, but it's not their top theory.

Update (8/27)==> Russians are now claiming to have found explosives in the wreckage of one of the planes, pointing back towards terrorism as a likely culprit.

Update (8/28)==> Russians have now found explosives in both planes that crashed earlier in the week, making terrorism the most likely theory.

Final update (8/30)==> Now they're claiming it was definitely terrorism.

"Today without a shadow of a doubt we can say that both airplanes were blown up as a result of a terrorist attack," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Lieutenant-General Andrei Fetusov as saying.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (156)

GMail beta accounts

I have four invites to give out for the Gmail beta account. Anyone interested?

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (808)

August 23, 2004

George, why must you torment us so?

Not satisfied with making Han shoot first, twisting the Force into a blood-borne disease, and giving us an SF character hated even more than Wesley (sorry Wil), George Lucas may now be thinking about filming Star Wars episodes 7, 8, and 9!

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1197)

More muppet porn... and a stab at a comic strip

MAW was ragging on me about all the muppet-porn, so I figured I'd really show her. Besides, it gave me the impetus to at least try to prototype a comic strip. It doesn't have the characters I want to eventually use, but I just wanted to see if it was feasible. I didn't size it quite right, so it's a little too wide for my blog-format. As a result, I've done it as a pop-up here:

Render /Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (3)

August 22, 2004

Ah, that new car smell...

Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (860)

August 21, 2004

The Hercules Text

I just finished reading The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt. Technically, this was an updated version contained in a two-novel bundle titled Hello Out There. In the author's notes, he says that he significantly altered the background politics in the story to remove the rather dated 80's references to the Soviet Union.

The cool thing about this book is that it gives us an interesting look at the Prime Directive. Specifically, it shows what happens to Earth when an alien civilization doesn't follow it.

They don't show up in their shiny warp-drive ship or anything. Instead, this is the tale of what happens when we finally receive that much sought-after radio signal from an extra-terrestrial intelligence. At first, it’s just a mathematical “hello”, but then we start getting the full Encyclopedia Galactica.

I’ll give you a bit of flavor for it with this excerpt:

“Is there a correlation between intelligence and compassion?” Rimford asked.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“No.” said Wheeler. “Or if there is, it’s a negative one.”

“Well, I don’t guess we have a consensus.” He opened his arms to the sky. “I’m inclined to agree with Pete.”

“What’s your point?” asked Harry.

“Any society smart enough to survive its early technological period should conclude that even the knowledge of its existence could have deleterious effects on an emerging culture. I mean, we’ve figured that out. It even shows up as Star Trek’s prime directive. Who’s to say what such knowledge might do, for example, to the religious foundations of a society?”

“That’s an old idea,” said Wheeler. “But you’re suggesting we might be listening to a culture that is actively malevolent. That takes satisfaction in disrupting societies it hasn’t encountered. And will never know.”

“It might be perceived as a religious obligation,” said Rimford, slyly.

Wheeler nodded, refusing to take the bait. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“There’s a better explanation,” said Harry. “The old cliché: Never ascribe to malevolence what can safely be attributed to stupidity.”

“Morons with the technology of their bright ancestors,” said Rimford. “Now that’s an interesting thought.” He refilled their glasses, and they gazed out at the surrounding woods. “There is something we need to consider though. We know the Hercules transmitter is a product of extreme sophistication. What happens if we get a million years’ worth of technology overnight?” His face was hidden in shadow. “Pete was talking about the philosophical problems that might arise. Here’s a variant. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists announced that nothing remained to be learned in their discipline. From that point, it would all be simply a matter of measuring and cataloging. It’s an interesting notion, and it’s been showing its head again recently. The end of science. Break through to the Theory of Everything, and after that it’s over. What would happen to us, to all of us, if that indeed were to happen? If these people just flat out told us how everything worked? Left nothing for us to do?”

Harry had found a canvas chair, and he relaxed in it, setting his beer down on a side table. “It wouldn’t affect most people at all, Baines. Most of us just want to pay the mortgage and watch TV. It’s only a handful of troublemakers who’d worry because we no longer needed supercolliders.”

Rimford made a sound deep in his throat and glanced at his watch. “We may be about to discover the true nature of time. Except that we won’t discover it. The Altheans will explain it to us.” He shook his head. “I think the bastards, if they’ve really done that, are mean-spirited. And it’s hard to believe that wouldn’t have known what they were doing.”

Rating: Three deep thoughts and a passion fruit.

Reviews by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Little Lady

I finally got some decent pictures of my little lady. On the left she's happily playing with MAW, but on the right she's clearly signalling that it's time to put the #&$^@-ing camera away.

Photography by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (208)

August 20, 2004

Friday Five: Is that Darwin at the door?

Today's Friday 5 comes from Gord:

Describe five of your most interesting near-death-experiences. Now, by NDE I don't mean when you temporarily die and you see a white light, get visited by your grandmother's second cousin's dog's previous owner, hear choirs of angels singing pastiches of the Carpenters and Handel, or anything like that. (Though of course such (purported) experiences would certainly fall well within the range of possible answers to this question.) Rather, I mean situations in which you or someone you were with nearly died. Actual (permanent) death does not count. Rather, the near escape or near avoidance of death is what we are all curious about. (Or, at least, I am!)

This was tough for me. I just haven’t had five experiences that were all that close to death. Frankly, I don’t think you’re supposed to have that many. It’s a little thing called natural selection. If your life is that dangerous, you probably aren’t alive to be typing up a Friday Five. So, I’ve had to stretch things a bit.

1. After being on life support for twelve hours, I asked the doctor what happened. He told me, really excitedly, “You have a psuedocholinesterase deficiency. Do you have any idea how rare that is? It’s like one in ten thousand at best. You’re going to be one for the medical journals, for sure.” Not “I’m glad you made it” or “you’re lucky to be alive” but “cool – I get to write a paper about you!” Still, I am partly the reason why Succinylcholine is now used only in emergencies and not as a general anesthetic.
2. My lab partner was just about to throw the switch when the instructor wandered by. He looked things over and said, “You know, I really admire the way you guys have set up a 50,000 volt transformer on top of a steel plate.”
3. As a child, a small tornado went right down my street but actually skipped our house. Roofs, fences, and trees were destroyed all around us, but we only had a trash-can knocked over. Of course my brother, using all his survival instincts, ran to the 10x5-foot plate glass window to see what all the noise was.
4. Then there was the time my hand was cramped down hard onto some nice wall-current. My friend called out to his sister, “Dan’s getting electrocuted!” She came running, asking, “Can you see his bones?!”
5. And most recently, there was the time I walked up to My Amazing Wife, who was nine-months pregnant with twins at the time, and said, “Damn, Honey, you’re getting fat.”

Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1292)

August 19, 2004

At least it's not muppet porn...

I'm walking a little funny after just seeing this.

Thanks to Marvin for passing this on.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (761)

August 18, 2004

The Stupidest Man on Earth

This was just too funny to pass up.

INTRODUCING THE DUMBEST GUY ON EARTH!
This picture is real - not doctored in any way - and was taken by a Transportation Supervisor for a company that delivers building materials for 84 Lumber. When he saw it in the parking lot of IHOP, he went to buy a camera to take pictures.

The car is still running, as can be witnessed by the exhaust. A woman is either asleep or otherwise out in the front seat passenger side.

Witnesses said their physical/mental state was OTHER than normal. The driver finally came back after the police were called, and was found crouched behind the rear of the car attempting to cut the twine around the load! Luckily, the police stopped him and had the load removed. The materials were loaded at Home Depot. Their store manager said they made the customer sign a waiver. While the plywood and 2X4s are fairly obvious, what you can't see is the back seat, which contains -- are you ready for this? -- 10 bags of concrete @ 80 lbs. each. They estimated the load weight at 3000 lbs. Both back tires exploded, the wheels bent and the back shocks were driven through the floorboard. The car, with FL plates, was headed for Clanton, Al. where the couple presumably planned to build a new house!

Almost a Darwin Award's nominee, but fatally short on one requirement.

Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (178)

Obiwan's got some splainin to do

I recently watched “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” again (yes, I’m Lucas’ bitch) and came to the conclusion that our great Obiwan must have had some explaining to do after the great battle. This other scene of his with Yoda must have been cut.

Obiwan: Yes, master Yoda?

Yoda: Speak to me you will of today. Great deeds done were many, yet of yours little I know.

O: It has been a victorious day, though a sad one for our order.

Y: Yes, sad for us, but happy many others are. Queen Amidahla quite resourceful showed herself to be. A godlike pilot young Skywalker is said to have been. Even Bantha-fodder-brains-for Binks Jar Jar successful in battle was. Yet little for yourself to show have you. Tell me you will.

O: Well, Qui-Gon and I fought the dark lord of the Sith.

Y: Together fought you?

O: Well, yes, at first. He was very skilled with the lightsaber. His was really big and had two ends. Forgive me, master Yoda, but we should get some of those.

Y: Size of ones blade matters not. (winks) Together at first, you say. Separate from your master did you?

O: Well, yes. We were in this large chamber that went down forever, and I fell off the bridge.

Y: Fell, did you? Here you are yet.

O: There was another bridge, you see. I landed on it.

Y: Return to your master you attempted?

O: Certainly, master Yoda. I jumped back up to the first bridge and chased after them, but there was this energy field, you see.

Y: Passed through it Qui-Gon did?

O: Yes, well, no. It turned off and then back on. Actually there were a lot of these energy fields.

Y: For switch did you search?

O: Ummm, no. I didn’t think of that. But they opened again anyway so I went running through.

Y: Find your master again, did you?

O: Well, almost. The energy fields turned on again, and I was stuck between them.

Y: And Qui-Gon faring how was?

O: Well, that’s when the Sith killed him.

Y: Hmmm, and responded you how?

O: Well, I uh… I waited for the field to go down.

Y: Nothing did you? Lying dead was your master and nothing did you?

O: Well, I did scream “NOOOOO!” and glare at the Sith really angry-like.

Y: Hmmm, yes, a true Jedi master you have become.

O: Then the field went off—

Y: A switch found you?

O: Well, no, I had just waited.

Y: (shakes head and makes obscure Jedi gesture) Continue.

O: So, then we fought. He was really good, you know, with that big lightsaber, but then I cut it in half, so it only had one end. I really rocked on that one.

Y: And then slay him did you?

O: Well, no, not just then. He used the Force to push me into a hole.

Y: Hole the same as with bridges?

O: No, this was a different hole.

Y: Many holes your story has. Continue.

O: So, I was hanging on to the wall of the hole, and then he kicked my lightsaber down into the hole too.

Y: Catch it did you?

O: No. I guess I wasn’t thinking.

Y: A trait often you show.

O: Well, I did start thinking then. You see, Qui-Gon’s lightsaber was just a little ways off, so I jumped up, used the Force to grab it and then cut the Sith Lord in half. Now that was heroic, if I do say so myself.

Y: And where the body of the Sith now is?

O: Oh, it fell down hole.

Y: With your lightsaber, yes?

O: Um, yeah, so I don’t really know where it is.

Y: (paces) Continue.

O: So, then I rushed over to Qui-Gon just in time to hear his dying words.

Y: (shocked) Alive was he?

O: Barely, but he did tell me to—

Y: Broken your comm device was?

O: No, not at all, it worked fine.

Y: But battle already over was! For five minutes dying your master was! Nothing you did?

O: Well, there was this energy field, you see…

Y: Yes, and much “NOO!” screamed you did, but no “med team stand by” did you or “backup send” did you. Not even a “to whom it concern may” did you try!

O: Gee… I hadn’t thought about that. They did come pretty fast afterwards.

Y: Obiwan, ashamed you should be. Weak-minded fools performed better would have.

O: You are wise, master Yoda. Next time I’m in trouble, I’ll be sure to call for help.

Y: If in the future rescuing you need, expect not the ranks of Jedi, nor with the cavalry not will I arrive to rescue you not.

O: Forgive me, master Yoda, but though I am skilled in the ways of the Force, I do not understand what you just said. Will you, or will you not arrive with the cavalry?

Y: Hmmm, difficult to say. Always in motion is my grammar. Enough of this. The boy we will now discuss…

Narrative /Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1464)

August 17, 2004

British bag dirty bombers

It seems that the recent terrorist arrests in Britain were actually connected to the August 1st terror alerts here in the U.S. It seems that they nabbed some of the guys who were planning the attack on financial targets in the NY/NJ area.

Britain charged eight terrorism suspects Tuesday and said one had plans which could be used in terror attacks on U.S. financial targets in New York, New Jersey and Washington.

The charges were the first official confirmation that the British suspects, seized in raids two weeks ago, were linked to a high-profile security scare in the United States this month and an unfolding terrorism probe spanning three continents.

That's odd... I thought those alerts were supposed to be purely a political stunt by Bush to distract us from the Democratic convention.

Sorry, my cynicism knob seems to be busted today.

Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (651)

Tatooine?

I went out and took a snapshot of the sunrise this morning, and when I looked at the picture, I saw a double sunrise.

Lens effect, atmospheric refraction, or momentary teleportation to Tatooine? You decide.

The left image is a tightly cropped shot, while the right image is still at full resolution, so you'll have to pan around. I just wanted to show the captured detail of the clouds.

Photography by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (357)

August 16, 2004

Blue cheese never cheers up.

I can't believe I forgot to do this already.

I use this phrase as a test on various websites, etc., to see if they have been found by search engines. As long as I'm the only one doing it, it works pretty well. So go and find your own key phrase.

So far, no hits, but none of my older blue cheese sites are still online.

Try Alta Vista or Google.

I've also modified my main template to include the phrase in the sidebar with a link back to this entry. The funny thing is that while setting it up, it first ended up just below the list of online comics. So, now I'm thinking about this comic strip I've been considering and how I never came up with a name to encapsulate its general silliness, and... well, "Blue cheese never cheers up" just about does it. We'll see.

:::> Update (8/18/2004): Damn but that didn't take long. Google already has a search entry for it as of yesterday. It took them only two days to find it. It makes you wonder... does Google know where Osama is?

::> Update 2 (8/20/2004): Apparently Alta Vista found it pretty soon afterwards. Either I'm being linked too far more heavily than my previous sites, or search engines have just gotten a lot more aggressive in their indexing crawls.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (293)

Is this secure?

For work I frequently use a virtual private network. The login authentification is comprised of a short PIN number followed by a 6-digit time-based key. That key is provided by a small hardware token and is only valid for a minute or two. At the other end, my combined number is authenticated with a combination of my login ID (pointing into some data table) and the current time. It is effectively a single-use password and is considered to be very secure. I even travel with the token, but I keep the PIN prefix in my head.

Now, here's a guy who doesn't want to travel with the token, so he has a webcam pointing at it. Thus, his time-based key is public knowledge. However, this is still fairly secure since we don't know a) what network this guy is trying to log into, and b) what his prefix PIN is. Still, I don't think his IT department would be amused.

Technology by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 15, 2004

Dean Drive

The subject of the Dean Drive came up over dinner as an example of the kind of crackpots that show up at SF Cons in higher density than normal. My father was visiting and had never heard of the Dean Drive. Here's Jerry Pournelle's tale of how he tried to buy the rights to the Dean Drive.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (533)

Where those defense dollars are really going...

Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (357)

August 14, 2004

SF Gay Marriage... an "I told you so"

I'm doing a little "I told you so" regarding the recent voiding of the SF gay marriages from this spring. In another blog, I wrote at length about this issue trying to make the point that while I do support gay marriage, what had happened in San Francisco was very wrong. Now it seems that the California Supreme Court has agreed, though far more eloquently than I.

The crux of my argument came down to an issue of the rule of law.

You can argue that the California law is wrong, and I would agree. However, it is the law of the land, duly passed by voter referendum. You can argue that there is a place in our society for civil disobedience, for citizens to willfully disobey laws they believe to be unjust, and I would agree. However, that’s not what has happened in San Francisco. The mayor did not take an action as a citizen to disobey a law himself. He took an action as an elected official, sworn to uphold the law and execute its policy in the governing of his city. That is not civil disobedience. That is breaking the contract between the people and those who rule over them.

Here the California Supreme Court was better:

We assumed jurisdiction in these original writ proceedings to address an important but relatively narrow legal issue — whether a local executive official who is charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a state statute exceeds his or her authority when, without any court having determined that the statute is unconstitutional, the official deliberately declines to enforce the statute because he or she determines or is of the opinion that the statute is unconstitutional.
...
The same legal issue and the same applicable legal principles could come into play, however, in a multitude of situations. For example, we would face the same legal issue if the statute in question were among those that restrict the possession or require the registration of assault weapons, and a local official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing those statutes, refused to apply their provisions because of the official’s view that they violate the Second Amendment of the federal Constitution.
...
Indeed, another example might illustrate the point even more clearly: the same legal issue would arise if the statute at the center of the controversy were the recently enacted provision (operative January 1, 2005) that imposes a ministerial duty upon local officials to accord the same rights and benefits to registered domestic partners as are granted to spouses (see Fam. Code, § 297.5, added by Stats. 2003, ch. 421, § 4)), and a local official — perhaps an officeholder in a locale where domestic partnership rights are unpopular — adopted a policy of refusing to recognize or accord to registered domestic partners the equal treatment mandated by statute, based solely upon the official’s view (unsupported by any judicial determination) that the statutory provisions granting such rights to registered domestic partners are unconstitutional because they improperly amend or repeal the provisions of the voter-enacted initiative measure commonly known as Proposition 22, the California Defense of Marriage Act (Fam. Code, § 308.5) without a confirming vote of the electorate, in violation of article II, section 10, subdivision (c) of the California Constitution.
...
As these various examples demonstrate, although the present proceeding may be viewed by some as presenting primarily a question of the substantive legal rights of same-sex couples, in actuality the legal issue before us implicates the interest of all individuals in ensuring that public officials execute their official duties in a manner that respects the limits of the authority granted to them as officeholders. In short, the legal question at issue — the scope of the authority entrusted to our public officials — involves the determination of a fundamental question that lies at the heart of our political system: the role of the rule of law in a society that justly prides itself on being “a government of laws, and not of men” (or women).

As indicated above, that issue ― phrased in the narrow terms presented by this case ― is whether a local executive official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a statute, has the authority to disregard the terms of the statute in the absence of a judicial determination that it is unconstitutional, based solely upon the official’s opinion that the governing statute is unconstitutional. As we shall see, it is well established, both in California and elsewhere, that subject to a few narrow exceptions that clearly are inapplicable here a local executive official does not possess such authority.

Now, as I've said before, I support gay marriage, and I hope that the proper legal challenge winding its way through the California courts recognizes these couples' legal rights. In the meantime, I applaud the California Supreme Court for slapping down the mayor of San Francisco for thinking he could just wing it.

Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (724)

August 13, 2004

Friday 5: You have the right to remain silent

Today's Friday 5 comes from Adrienne:

What are the five Friday Five questions that you hope no one ever asks?

That sounds disturbingly like a question the prosecutor would ask the defendant, but here goes.

1. What five things do you most want your spouse not to find out about?
2. What are the five things you expect to see in your personal room 101? Could you draw us a diagram, too?
3. What are your five most embarrassing nicknames and how did you get them?
4. What are the last five digits of pi?

And let's not forget...

5. What are the five Friday Five questions that you hope no one ever asks?

Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (741)

August 12, 2004

Wrapping up SIGGraph

I wrapped up at SIGGraph today, hobbling along the last two days on a blister. I am now home with family and many hugs from My Amazing Wife.

Oh, you're going to love this. I made one last stop by the convention's lost and found on my way out. My watch had been turned in an hour beforehand. This is moving beyond mere coincidence and moving towards the realm of sentient artifacts.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (268)

August 11, 2004

SIGGraph, Day 3

A few highs and lows from yesterday. You figure out which is which.

• I found out that some super-high contrast displays will be commercially available next year -- for only $40,000. Consumer-level versions are still about five years out.
• An AMD employee accosted me for my company's decision to drop its UNIX versions, a decision that was made four years before I joined the company.
• I found a Coke machine selling cans for only $1. (I'll give you a hint on this for those who don't know me all that well -- $10 would have been a bargain.)
• I was showing the Poser people a technical problem I'd been having with the hair room, and I managed to lock-up the software on the trade show floor, right in front of potential customers.
• I got moderate amounts of loot.
• Several of my coworkers got together for a round-table discussion on technologies and problems we shared throughout our speciality of the company. For NDA reasons, I often joke that my job involves work on an FTL drive, so let's just say we found common ground on plasma dynamics.
• I lost my watch. I've been having an unusual relationship with my watch lately. It keeps dying on the weekends or when I'm on vacation only to start working agin Monday mornings. My Amazing Wife tells me that this is my watch's way of telling me I need to relax and not worry about the time. If this is just part of the same trend, I expect it to show up as I'm heading for the airport. I do have my cellphone for backup, so I'm not totally lost.
• Due to all the local restaurants closing at 5pm around here, I've had Italian for dinner four nights in a row now.
• I met a young woman who had a diagram of the golden ratio tattooed on her back -- one very serious art chick.

Everything looks on schedule for me to return home Thursday night.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (229)

August 10, 2004

More SIGGraph

After dinner last night, I went to a session called “demo or die” where various teams gave a project demo in three minutes and were then either voted up or down like gladiators before Caesar. Some of these were from academia, but some were from small research firms or little startups. While there were a few gems, most of them were abysmal. It’s not so much that their quality was bad, but my main impression was that there was a lot of effort being spent on some bad ideas.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (812)

August 09, 2004

SIGGraph, Day 2 (continued)

I went to the Keynote speech this time. I've never actually been to a keynote before. I'd always pass by, peek in, and conclude that it was just a bunch of speechifying, more worthy of a Hollywood awards ceremony than a computer conference. This time I was lured in by the promised keynote speech by a hometown author, Bruce Sterling.

I almost didn't last that long because the prelude was a drawn out congratulatory session and awards ceremony, but I did stick it out after all. It wasn't really worth it. I've heard Bruce speak before, but he went a little off the deep end today. In short, we all need to become one with the "spimes" we "wrangle" since that relationship will save the planet. I can see where he's going with it, and in a sense he may be on target, but monstly he just beat his chest like the good techno-shaman of our wandering tribe. A fun ride, but it's not going to help with my job.

I keep running into folks from work, but I haven't yet run into Chuck. We'll see how long that lasts.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (875)

SIGGraph: Day 2

As an interesting side note, LAX has passengers exit the secure area through revolving doors. If you try to go back through from unsecure to secure through those doors, sensors in the floor detect you, then the computer allows the doors to rotate until you’re sealed in, and then the alarm sounds, leaving you trapped in a glass and steel box until airport security arrives. And no, I didn’t find this out the hard way.

The X-Games are in town at the Staples Center right next to SIGGraph. This includes a near-vertical ramp about 50 feet high that “athletes” ride skateboards down and then up into another jump ramp. You couldn’t pay me enough even to be the guy at the top who helps send them down.

Registration was fairly quick given the number of people, though I thought the algorithm was sub-optimal. It was a classic case where 100% of the objects are sent through the slower generalized pipelines when 95% of the objects could have been handled by a simpler, single pipeline. Even the remaining 5% could have had most of their process done in the simple pipeline and then be transferred to a second line for post-processing. Still, I’ve seen worse.

I took an early look around at some of the displays being setup in the Emerging Technologies section -- emerging emerging, I suppose. Only two were far enough along to make sense of. One was what looked like a motion capture system for capturing swimming motion, complete with one hapless student strung up horizontally in mid-air, able to move her limbs through a swimming motion against counterweights. The title was something about swimming across the Pacific. The second recognizable booth was showing off new display systems with a very high degree of contrast. It’s not about making darker blacks for them. It’s about making brighter whites. They had a sunset on the display, and it wasn’t like looking at any monitor I’ve ever seen. It was much more like looking out a window.

It doesn't look like any decent courses today, though Bruce Sterling is delivering a keynote speech this afternoon. It won't be anything Earth-shattering to the industry, of course, but he's an interesting speaker.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (815)

August 08, 2004

Living the wireless life in LA

I'm here at SIGGraph, sitting on the floor of the convention center lobby, typing away on my laptop, operating on battery, and accessing the net via the wireless network. No wires.

So far, SIGGraph has been about the same as previous years, but LA is oppressively hot, even though it is supposedly only 82F. From the air, LA is a desert of asphalt rooftops and concrete. Austin, by comparison, is a forest.

That's it for now. I'll post more tomorrow when I can compose from a more comfortable setting.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 07, 2004

Go West, Young Man...

I'm heading out to LA today to attend SIGGraph. I'm not sure what net access I'll get out there, so it might get pretty quiet here over the next week. On the other hand, you might be inundated with updates from the show.

If you want to reach me, your best bet will be by my gmail account:

On a personal note, work has been pretty stressful in the last few weeks, so while I will try to get my company's money's worth out of the trip, I'm really looking forward to this as almost a vacation. I'm actually following it up with one to pad it out through the next weekend, so I'll have ten days away from the "office".

My blood pressure is dropping already. I just hope My Amazing Wife doesn't kill me when I get back.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1178)

August 06, 2004

This law makes itself illegal

From LawMeme comes a little article on how the INDUCE Act is running afoul the Turing undecidability theorem, a proven fact in computer science.

I'm not quite sure what a court would do with a law that could be proven impossible to apply correctly.

Technology by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1690)

Friday 5: If only wishing it made it so

Today's question comes from Laura, who would like us to set reality down for a moment:

I think the greatest tragedy of the world is that dragons don't exist. What are the five things you really wish were true - and do you believe in them?

She wishes dragons were real? A few months ago I was outside playing with my son. A large winged shadow swept across the lawn, covering at least a hundred feet. In a heartbeat I started racing to pick up my son to get him into the house, and then I realized, “Wait… we’re not under a dragon alert.” Dragon Alert?? Reality to Dan… Reality to Dan… you got off on the wrong floor. So maybe it’s just me, but I’m glad there are no hundred-foot-long, fire-breathing predators flying across our skies. There are, however, a few things that I do wish were true.

1. Extra-terrestrial intelligence is common. I’ve spent too many hours watching and reading science fiction not to be enthralled by the possibilities of alien intelligences in every nook and cranny of our galaxy. However, I’ve spent enough time with the Fermi Paradox that I’m having my doubts. While I’m inclined to give the Drake Equation some generous numbers, the testable prediction that results has not yet been validated. It could be any day, but as each day goes by, it seems a little less probable. So, for me the jury’s still out on this one. Maybe ET is just around the corner, or maybe we are alone (or virtually alone) in this galaxy. If the latter, it’s that much more imperative that we find a way to survive and expand.
2. Faster-than-light travel is possible and is just one more engineering problem. Again, I’ve spent too much time with sci-fi, so I’m very comfortable with the idea that Sirius is just a few days away. STL travel is so boooring. Unfortunately, Einstein is against me on this one, and he was a fairly sharp guy. I still hold out some hope for the Alcubierre warp drive or a wormhole variation of my own design (for another entry), but the really annoying part is that easy FTL makes it hard to resolve the Fermi Paradox in an alien-friendly way.
3. There are enough hours in the day to do all the projects I want to do. I’m a project/hobby junkie. I see something interesting, and I’m immediately, “Ooo, that’s really cool – I want to spend the 400 hours a year necessary to pursue it.” Unfortunately, I’ve done that for a dozen things: reading, writing fiction, blogging, render-art, render-comics, leatherwork, photography… just to name a few. On more than one occasion, I’ve done an exercise to work out just how to do it all. I start off with a week-long schedule, down to the hour. I then start filling it with work, meals, showers, etc. and then move on to hobbies, trying to give each one a good chunk of time in that week. In the end, I realize that I could do it all… if only I could get by with an hour of sleep each night – plus an extra half-hour to sleep in on Sundays! And yet, that doesn’t stop me from launching into new projects and hobbies with abandon. The only thing that keeps me going on it is the idea that I have a good shot at retiring before 65-ish, and I could give up work a lot more easily than I could give up sleep.
4. My father-in-law would have approved of me. I never got to meet my father-in-law. He died within a month of me meeting My Amazing Wife, before we were even dating. As a result, I never got to do the nerve-wracking “meet her father” session. I never got to ask him for her hand in marriage, and I never got his blessing. I’ve gotten much of that from my mother-in-law, and I know she approves of me, and I don’t mean to discount that, but… there’s this whole “man” thing burned into our culture about a man proving to another that he’s worthy of the other man’s daughter. In our enlightened times, I know it’s silly, but still… I never got that approval. So, I think he would have approved, and I surely hope he would have, but I just don’t know.
5. Excalibur is waiting at the bottom of a British lake, still sharp and unblemished. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Arthurian legends, especially the notion that there’s a kernel of truth buried deep within. A real Arthur walked the lands dispensing law and justice and peace. I’d be willing to let go of any particular part of the Arthur story, but the thing I emotionally cling to is the implicit promise in returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. I’m not really waiting for some new British King to fulfill a messianic prophecy, but I’d like to think that at the moment when some forward-thinking British chieftain was seeing all he loved burned to ashes, he believed the future would someday bring back some of his better ideals. So I like to think of Excalibur, a blade forged by a master smith skilled beyond his time (think Highlander’s picometer-sized folding combined with modern stainless steel), is resting beneath the silt in all its glory, a dying man’s promise to the future. Do I really think it’s true? No. At best, I think there’s a flat piece of rusted iron down there. But I can always wish. As a side note, I would love to see the pending Indiana Jones 4 be about the search for Excalibur, but I don’t think Hollywood is that smart.

Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 05, 2004

The X-Prize is a race now...

A second team has announced it will make an X-Prize attempt starting October 2nd. This is just days after the September 29 attempt by Scaled Composites. Since victory requires a second launch within 14 days, it's possible that this ten-year race may come down to a matter of how many days does it take to turn the vehicle around for a second launch.

Pit crews to your stations!

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time scales...

Someone from the performance team at work passed this along:

Now 2GHz is a difficult thing to imagine for a human. Put simply that is 2 billion (Dr Evil pose) instructions per second at maximum throughput. So lets put this on our terms. Let's say one processor “clock cycle” is not 1/2,000,000,000 of a second but rather 1 second. On that scale accessing the nearby L1 on-chip cache takes 6 seconds, the off chip (L2) cache 2-3 minutes, and accessing main memory takes 3-4 weeks. Accessing the disk (just one disk access) by comparison takes a whopping 1 year on this timescale.

Technology by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)

An anti-spam tactic...crossing the ethical line?

I read an article the other day about a local, and wealthy, spammer. He gets paid about $7 for every lead he can hand off about refinancing a mortgage or what-not. Then I began to wonder if the tactics of spam could be used to poison that revenue stream, but it seems that's probably crossing the line into unethical behavior.

Then I decided that just talking about it is probably still on this side of the line. I'll let someone else imperil his soul crossing the line. Call me an enabler. ;)

Every spam that can actually bring someone some profit has a link going back to someone that will kindly take your information or your money. I'm thinking in particular about the ones that take your information for a followup. These are the ones that banks and other traditional businesses pay spammers for, allowing them to push the ethical problem of spam off to the middleman. They can then take those hot leads and followup with a high probability of a sale. Hot leads like that are gold. But what if that information starting turning bad? What if they suddenly started getting a hundred times as many leads, but 99% of them were bogus?

It's the same quandary we face with our email boxes every day, a signal to noise ratio of 1:99. Except while our cost is just annoyance and wear and tear on our delete keys, the cost to these banks and other buyers of leads would be the time and effort of a followup call that dead-ended. The value of those hot leads would drop not just 100-to-1 but even lower. To get to that one hot lead, you'd have to grind through 99 cold calls. At that point, these spam-generated leads would be worthless.

Now, we could all just start following up on spam, filling in bogus information or perhaps even with valid information but for someone not interested in the product, but that's going to have a limited impact. Not many people would do it for very long, but what if it could be automated? That's the main tool of the spammers, so can it be turned against them? Could we write tools that followed spam links, looked for the right data-entry fields and plugged in the information? Such a tool could create semi-random data (Abraham Adams through Zachary Zane) or just pull it from a collection of real contacts such as those provided in telemarketing databases, available on CD-ROM for under $100.

Now, this would only be poisoning the leads that came through the spammers. They would already be tracked as such in order for the spammers to get paid, and as such, the buyers of the leads would be able to identify the source and cut it off. Spammers would have a record month, and then nothing except maybe a lawsuit or two.

Of course, not all spam falls into this category, so this is not the ultimate solution to the spam problem. But when I read about someone driving a Jaguar because my inbox is full of spam, I start thinking of ways to fuck with them.

Technology by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2)

A little bit of French bashing...

It's not that I have anything personal against anyone who is French. I'm just like the guy who used to tell Polish jokes, except I'm about 1000 miles to the west.

Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 04, 2004

Local Iraqi's stand up to kidnappers: the big NO

Here's a news grab-bag article covering events in Iraq, including how four hostages were freed by local Iraqi townspeople.

One of the Jordanians said he and three other Jordanian truck drivers were freed by a group of Iraqis who stormed a house in Falluja late Tuesday without firing a shot.

"When the brave people of Falluja knew that we were held hostage they raided the house and rescued us last night. We are all safe," one of the hostages, Ahmad Hassan Abu Jafaar, told Reuters. "We're expecting to go back to Jordan today."
...
The drivers had been carrying shoes and knitting machines imported by an Iraqi firm from the United Arab Emirates.

The Iraqi rescuers were sent by a council of local elders formed last month to battle crime and kidnapping in Falluja, where the interim government has only minimal authority.

Of course, in a more perfect world, the rescue would have been done by Iraqi police. In an even better world, the kidnapping would have failed in the first place. But it's not such a world. Kudos to the local Iraqi's for standing up for themselves to say NO to these thugs who want nothing more than to see the Iraq devolve into anarchy.

It's a long road ahead for all of us, but it's nice to see a story showing that the Iraqi people know which way the road should go.

Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)

The tavern, cursed or blessed?

We’ve all heard the story of the cursed tavern where if you kill someone who works there, you must take on their job. The tale’s twisted logic led to the eventuality of a powerful mage tending bar, a high priest in the kitchen, great champions mucking out the stable, and so on. Mostly, of course, this is just a story we tell to fill time on the road. Then one day my friends and I actually found this tavern, or so we thought.

The map called the town Sirdol. The signpost called it Albistor. As usual, we were hoping to not find out what the sheriff called it. The hellhole of Verig’s “abandoned” keep was two days behind us, and except for Willa’s limp we were all past our various scrapes. It was time to relax, rest up, maybe do a bit of shopping, but most of all, it was time to hit the tavern.

This one had a moose head out front, but the faded lettering said something about Griffons. It had the usual mix: mostly locals, a few merchants, and a small party of our ilk, “adventurers”. Adventurers… yeah, more like armed scavengers, but some days it paid well, and this was one of those days. Willa, Regis, and I settled in while Farsil set up a tab for us at the bar. He came back with four mugs and a pitcher of ale.

I slammed down my first draught and only afterwards realized just how good it had been. Thinking quicker than I had in the tombs, I finished off the pitcher to top off my mug. Willa and Regis were taking theirs more slowly, savoring it, but Farsil had barely touched his.

“Drink up, boy,” I told him. “This is the best I’ve had since we left Gallashot, maybe even better.”

He did take a sip. “Yes, it is good. It’s just that…” he trailed off, looking into his ale.

“What?” Willa prompted.

“Well, that bartender… don’t look—” we all did “— but he looks an awful lot like Jakob of Chaipax.”

“Jakob the Great?” Regis asked.

“Jakob, alchemist to Lord Anton?” Willa continued.

“Yes, Jakob, creator of the only stable potion of fire breathing.”

I leaned left to take another look. “I thought he was supposed to have a beard.”

Farsil rolled his eyes. “Look at the mustache, Dep, and extrapolate, ok?”

I looked again, taking another gulp of my ale. “Maybe, but… could be a cousin.”

Farsil leaned forward, beckoning us closer with those conspiratorial eyes. “It’s not just that. That big guy sitting by the door for starters.”

“He looked like a bouncer to me,” Willa offered.

Farsil raised an eyebrow. “With jewels in his sword hilt?”

“Yeah, I noticed that when we came in,” Regis replied. He shrugged. “Sorry, professional habit.”

“So?” I came back at them. “It’s just a rich bouncer. I’d be too if my boss was serving ale this good.” I lifted the empty pitcher and waved the barmaid over.

We paused while she came with a full pitcher and took our empty one away.

Willa refilled hers and took a sip. “You think he’s Sir Waston of the Wolf, don’t you?”

Farsil only smiled.

Regis gave a nod. “With that jewel pattern, it could be Falcon’s Claw in that sheath of his, and Waston was known to do favors for Lord Anton when Jakob still worked for him.”

“Oh, for the love of magic, you’re not really telling me that two of the greatest legends this side of the Serpent Sea are working in a tavern.”

Farsil shrugged. “You know the tale as well as I do.”

I laughed. “But that’s a bullshit story, boy. Something we old-timers tell the new guy on the way back to town. I suppose next you’re going to tell me that Bishop Escallia is in the kitchen working on the stew or that the fucking barmaid is Light-fingered Lexy.”

Willa glared at me. “Not so loud. This is probably the worst place to start a brawl.”

I slammed back the rest of my ale. “I’m putting a stop to this right now.” Carrying my empty mug, I swaggered over the bar.

The barkeep set down his washrag and came over. “What can I get for ya?”

“Another ale,” I replied. “This is surely the best ale I’ve had in over a year. Is it your own?”

He filled it from the barrel beneath the bar. “It is. I make all the drinks here.”

I took a sip, even fresher than from the pitcher. A man could lose himself in this stuff. “My friends over there say you look like Jakob the great fire walker or breather or some such.”

He gave a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I get that all the time. Not so much since I shaved the beard, but still.”

Another sip. “So you did have a beard before.” This close, I got a good look at his nose, the same crook as the statue in the capital.

“Yeah,” he replied, “back when I worked for Lord Anton.” He held out his hand. “But it’s just ‘Jakob’ now.”

My mug hit the floor slightly before my jaw. The ale spilled over the floor, and the barmaid knelt down quickly to mop it up in her apron. Facing back to Jakob I took his hand slowly. “My, uh… it’s an honor, sir.” In the bottles behind him, I could make out movement from the bouncer by the door. Three ales earlier, I had left my broadsword under the table.

“No worries, pal,” he answered, getting me a fresh mug of ale. “Like I said, I get that all the time.”

The maid went to change to a new apron just as the bulk of the bouncer leaned down on the bar beside me. “Trouble, Jakob?”

“None at all, Waston,” he replied. “I was just chatting with uh…”

“Dep,” I replied promptly, offering my hand. “Dep of Gallashot.”

Waston took it – yes, I shook hands with Sir Waston the Wolf, you bastards – and did his best not to crush it. “Gallashot… you know Crowley?”

“Of course. He taught me the broadsword.”

“Yep,” he replied, “I always knew Crowley would go far.”

“So what brings you this way?” he asked, taking a mug for himself.

“I was just, well, my friends and I were exploring Verig’s old place, and well, we’re celebrating a bit, I guess.”

He chuckled. “Well, that’s one less on my to-do list.”

“If I had known, sir, we—”

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t get out much anymore these days.”

I looked back at my friends who were making a very poor attempt at not watching us. “You know, the other thing my friends said was that, well… there’s this story of a cursed tavern where…”

“Oh, I know that one,” Jakob jumped in. “If you kill someone there, you have to take their job.”

Waston smirked and sipped his ale.

“Just a story, eh?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Jakob replied. “It’s true all right, but that’s about two weeks’ ride northwest of here, out past Tipson’s Point.”

“Really?”

“They don’t get much business, of course, especially not after the cook was eaten by that zombie.”

Even I had to laugh at that. “A zombie for a cook? I’d steer clear of that.”

Waston shrugged. “Maybe the ghouls would like it.”

“Look, Jakob, Waston, my pals there will never forgive me if I don’t ask… just what are you two doing here?”

Jakob looked me up and down. “Well, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, we’re just blowing off steam, you know, celebrating after a crawl through… man, I’m going to need some more sleep before I talk about that one.”

“And isn’t that great, the celebrating?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I said, “especially when the ale is this good.”

“Yeah,” Waston chimed in. “It’s probably the best part of the whole lifestyle, isn’t it?”

I thought about it. “Well, there’s the excitement, the travel…”

“Yeah, sleeping in the rain, saddle sores…”

“There’s the treasure,” I countered.

“There is that,” Waston replied.

“But it’s only good for spending,” Jakob pointed out. “And what better to spend it on than the celebration?”

“Or the comfortable bed,” Waston offered.

“Or the ale,” Jakob continued.

Waston drained his mug. “I almost forgot – the whoring!”

The barmaid returned to the bar with an empty pitcher. “You’d never forget the whoring, deary.”

Slowly it began to sink in. “Yeah, this is the best part.”

Jakob stepped back and spread his hands. “So you see, when we could finally afford it, we retired. Now we get that best part every day.”

In the warm embrace of the ale, my dreams of castles and followers were all turning to drab routines of upkeep and training and kissing some Baron’s ass while trying to pick the right tax rate.

“So, Jakob,” the barmaid asked. “You got another convert?”

I nodded. “I think he does.”

“By the way,” she said to me, “It’s Lexy of the light touch, not Light-fingered Lexy.”

I turned and really looked at her for the first time. “Oh my, I… what I meant was…”

“Fear not, love, no offense taken. Besides,” she said, handing me a small piece of leather, “you tip well.” After she left with a fresh pitcher I realized what it was: my boot pouch, the stitching neatly cut away. I took another sip of my ale and laughed. It was worth it.

And then, boys and girls, I shit you not, Bishop Escallia himself came out of the kitchen with a great big pot of stew.

Narrative by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 03, 2004

HBO goes poly

HBO has given the green light to a new series "Big Love" about a polygamist and his three wives. It's unclear as yet if this will be a negative take, i.e. one man deceives three women, or a positive take, i.e. one man and three women are happy together.

Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1014)

August 02, 2004

City Council meeting, really local politics

I had an interesting time at the local city council meeting.

I live just outside a small Texas town -- which does not imply anything about my intelligence BTW -- and it's clear that the ACLU has not been attending these meetings. It opened with an invocation, but this wasn't a watered down "we ask an anonymous spirit-entity of questionable existence for his or her or its non-judgemental blessing" invocation. No, this was an Invocation with capital I, capital G-O-D, and can we have an "Amen JESUS!" Ok, it wasn't that much of a Southern Baptist rivival, but it was not the normal watered down invocation.

The other intersting thing was seeing someone actually get a $4500 grant from the economic development commission to help them build the website for their new e-commerce business to be run in the city. Ostensibly, this was called an "infrastructure" improvement. The mayor balked at this, but he was outvoted. While he admitted that in this new age, electronic elements count as infrastructure, he felt that the city's money should be reserved for infrastructure like roads, etc.

More to the point, I think the grants like that should be reserved for infrastructure that the new business can't just pack up and take with them. After all, this new business could easily relocate, taking its "infrastructure" with them. In truth, the infrastructure will be at the web-hosting company, not even in the city.

Of course, I think the nature of their business is going to demand that if they are successful they move to the nearby large city, but to be honest, I suspect that the business will fail long before that becomes an issue. They're trying to enter a market that is already dominated by established national players, and they don't seem to be offering anything special to distinguish themselves. Mind you, I applaud them for attempting to create a small business, but this one looks like a textbook case of why most small/new businesses fail.

Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1077)

August 01, 2004

Tweaking the values

Some of you may remember some of my earlier renderings. Here's a new one where I'm mostly just tweaking various paramaters, both to morph the face/hair and to modify the materials. I've included the default for a side-by-side comparison. Both were rendered in production mode with the same overall render settings. Mine is on the right.

This is also the first time I've really started from scratch on the hair. I don't like the curliness on the top, but I couldn't figure out how to straighten that out. Just having a bad hair day I guess.

Render by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (576)