arduino update

OK, so the circuit I initially designed violates the laws of physics. OK, so I didn't know this at first and tried to implement a software fix. At least it shows I'm thinking, right?

Anyway, the initial circuit design, being impossible in this universe, has been scrapped. I've gone to a newer, much simpler circuit design, which isn't nearly as much fun as the first but has the advantage of not being imaginary. I am now writing the software for it, then I have to go to Radio Shack and get a momentary NO pushbutton switch so I can actually build it.

And then I shall rule the world.

geek sex

An oldie but a goodie:


grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount /dev/boy -t

wet;fsck;fsck;yes;yes;yes;umount /dev/boy;zip;sleep

New Heart Device Installed in Cheney

WASHINGTON, July 28 — Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a long history of heart disease, had minor surgery Saturday to replace the implanted cardiac device that can monitor and correct his heart rhythm, the White House said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29cheney.html?hp


Years ago, Time magazine developed a series of expressions their writers were to use to get certain messages across to the reader while limiting the chance of legal action against the magazine. For example, Time never said that a politician was drunk in public, which can be very harmful to a person's career and can't be proved by a reporter without a verified blood alcohol report made at the scene. In Timespeak, drunk public officials were "dazed and confused" as they rambled in their speech. If they were a crying drunk they were "tired and emotional". A person's illicit lover (whether homosexual or extramarital or both) was their "great and good friend".

The idea continues to this day. When Rudy Giuliani was found having an affair with a member of his mayoral staff, the Village Voice tiptoed around the issue by saying that the woman "had served under him in a variety of positions over the years".

Therefore I love the Times' use in this headline of the verb "installed". I believe that like "dazed and confused' and "served under him", the phrase means more than it says: it's as if they're trying to tell us that like Darth Vader, Cheney is now more machine than man.

Arduino

I finally got my Arduino working. I now have a small, fully functional computer that costs $39 and is smaller than the palm of my hand. I am now this close to ruling the world.

How to Be a Real Writer

107 words: Jesus Christ, there's no way I'm going to be able to stretch this out to 800 words. I've already said everything there is to say. Short and concise, that's me. Hemingway. Bam, to the point! I suppose I can add some detail...

253 words: One third of the way there. I know they wanted 800 words, but come on. I'm going to have to write the equivalent of what I just wrote, then write the same amount _again_. Not gonna happen. I'm lucky if I can get 500 words out of this.

403 words: Halfway point! Time for a break! What movie can I watch?

505 words: Ok, if I stretch things out a bit, I'll probably make 800 words.

652 words: Uh, I might be in a bit of trouble here. Let me make a quick outline to see what's still remaining to talk about. I should have done an outline before I started. I always forget.

733 words: OK, I'm just gonna keep writing until I get it all down, then I'll cut.

958 words: Jesus Christ, there's no way I'm going to be able to shrink this down to 800 words. I've already left out so much.

909 words: Yeah, cleaning up the first half always helps.

856 words: Great. Now I have a string of great quotes without anything to hold them together.

871 words: Going in the wrong direction here. I think I have to lose the descriptive passages. It's the best writing I've ever done, so of course it has to go.

775 words: I cut too much. This whole thing makes ZERO sense now.

813 words: There! They won't mind if I'm a little bit over.

Saving the world, one frame at a time.

The Grenlight Earth Day Film Festival in Palo Alto, CA is your typical South Bay angstklatsch, where uber-serious student filmmakers present their ultra-serious films about the mega-serious environmental problems facing our hyper-serious world.

But this year the Tamaddon siblings, Austin, 14, and Arianna, 11, blew away the judges and spectators with their charming claymation short films The Happy Hybrid and the Polluting Pickup and Mr. Gopher, taking 1st place in the middle school and open competition categories respectively.

In Austin's The Happy Hybrid, a blue hybrid car (so environmentally friendly that is gets the flowers dancing and the birds singing) gets into a shoving match with a bushy-browed ragin' red pickup truck. The truck is stronger, but the effort quickly depletes its gas tank, leaving the truck dead in the road and enabling the hybrid to push it out of sight. The flowers are revitalized, the birds resume singing, and the hybrid dances a happy dance (thus the title). A 12-part special on the environment couldn't tell the story as clearly as this one minute and fifty second parable.

Arianna's Mr. Gopher is a bit more preachy. The title character burrows into the frame (leaving a trailed hump of disturbed earth, much in the same way Bugs Bunny used to travel underground) and is immediately beset by polluting cars and discarded cans and cigarette butts. The gopher is sad. A title card brings us into the future a few years later, when the roadway has been turned into a bike lane and flowers now grow where the cans and butts used to be. The gopher (and presumably the rest of the world) is happier.

Now that even Nick Park has embraced the digital, maybe the future of claymation rests with the children.

Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening

Please read this article by Johann Hari of The Independant in London. He signed up for the National Review cruise and wrote about six days of conservative talks and lectures, punctuated by his encounters with the other guests on the ship. The point was to find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren't listening.

It's already been determined that conservatives are "easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3." It turns out that they're pretty much the same at age 53 as well.

Some examples:

Her companion adds, "I went to Paris, and it was so lovely." Her face darkens: "But then you think - it's surrounded by Muslims." The first lady nods: "They're out there, and they're coming."

Dave changes the subject. "The liberals don't believe in the constitution. They don't
believe in what the founders wanted - a strong executive," he announces, to nods. A Filipino waiter offers him a top-up of his wine, and he mock-whispers to me, "They all look the same! Can you tell them apart?"

They carry notebooks from the scribblings they made during the seminar teaching them "How To Shop in Mexico". Over breakfast, I forgot myself and said I was considering setting out to find a local street kid who would show me round the barrios - the real Mexico. They gaped. "Do you want to die?" one asked.

"Treating Don Rumsfeld like Pinochet is disgusting." Egg Man pounds his fist on the table: " Treating Pinochet like that is disgusting. Pinochet is a hero. He saved Chile." "Exactly," adds Jim. "And he privatised social security."