Slaqing at life

Music of the moment, Feb 8 2012

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:04:00 +0000

The internet has opened up venues for what would only otherwise be local cult acts.

Needing/Getting by OK Go

OK Go has, in the particular piece above, combined the art of logistics with the art of music and developed something rarely heard outside of acts like the Blue Man Group. The trademark wild and quirky sound that has dominated their catalog is still there, albeit in a completely different format than their older stuff, due to the nature of the "instruments" "played".

While less musical genius and more creative genius is involved with this tune, it still amuses me in a fashion that I can't quite put a finger on. Perhaps with the visuals and the idea of all the work that has been put into just getting this to the table gives me pause.

OK Go's website: http://www.okgo.net

Music of the moment, Jan 23 2012

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:27:00 +0000

A bit of older music this week:

The Impression that I get by The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones.

The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones came into the pop rock scene in the early to mid 90s with the ska and swing "resurgence". This tune, arguably, is one of the defining tunes of the time.

Sonically all ska (and ska-punk, which is closer to what the Bosstones really fit) is incredibly interesting: You have a mid-range brass/woodwind section, an electric guitar that primarily stays on the top three strings, and lots of high tom/snare/hat work by the drummer. This leaves a HUGE hole for the bass (and sometimes baritone saxophone) to fill. Many of the bassists in this genre do their best to slam a ton of notes into the music to fill that void. The Bosstones often follow that recipe, this tune being no exception, and it works well.

I have a special place for this tune in my heart, evidenced by the fact that I've written about it before.

The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones website: http://www.bosstonesmusic.com

Music of the moment, Jan 16 2012

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:10:00 +0000

A classic tune this week: Lukey, a traditional folk song from the tiny island of Newfoundland.

This particular arrangement is performed by two great bands in the genre, The Chieftans and Great Big Sea. It has the feel of an old sea shanty, and sonically is an acoustic assault on the ear. There is so much going on in the music it's hard to track sometimes, but it comes out as a coherent piece of fun due to the talent that both of these groups bring to the table.

I've found myself drawn to Canadian/Irish folk music over the past few years. The instrumentation is completely fresh to my ear, having followed a gamut of preferred genres through the years from prog rock and metal, to jazz, to pop-rock. Accordion, tin whistle, violin, mandolin, dulcimer... While none unique to the genre, very unique to hear in something that has appeal to those outside of those who grew up with this kind of music.

The Chieftans: http://www.thechieftains.com/
Great Big Sea: http://www.greatbigsea.com

Music of the moment, Jan 9 2012

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:31:00 +0000

This is something I found last year, again, via Pandora.

Thinking Loudly by El Ten Eleven.

This reminds me very much of something that Michael Manring (one of my personal bass playing heroes) would have put on his solo album Thonk. The bassist is working hard to put a lot of well placed notes onto the plate and succeeds well. The music starts small and simply with keyboard pads which progressively grows into a wall of sound. It sets you back down gently, like a falling leaf brushes the ground in a light breeze before it comes to a standstill.

El Ten Eleven's official website: http://www.elteneleven.com.

Music of the moment, Jan 2 2012

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

I find that I have found lots of interesting stuff via Pandora and have decided to share some of it.

For this week, the music that caught my attention was this: Go Do by Jonsi (This Vimeo link has the audio encoded a bit louder)

I love how the huge floppy kick drum, which usually doesn't work anywhere, dovetails with the rest of the music sonically. Woodwinds and strings dance and spin around keyboard pads, percussion, and Jonsi's somewhat haunting sounding tenor voice, weaving something that is simultaneously acoustically dense and yet still maintains a considerable amount of air within it.

Jonsi's official website: http://jonsi.com/

Against all odds...

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:40:00 +0000

Kia has made a car that's not a complete yawn or completely offensive to look at. The Forte Koup (no points for stupid spelling, marketing) looks to have "borrowed" heavily from the Honda Civic Coupe design, and I think they've made a good go at it. The 4 cylinder mills driving the front wheels should be sewing machine reliable if Kia's recent track record has anything to say about it. The cars are well appointed, even the base model has cruise, 4 discs (which is becoming more common these days, but surprisingly is not standard on all cars yet), AirCon, tilt steering, more airbags than you can shake a stick at, what appears to be a sane driver/center console setup... On paper, it looks like a steal for the base of under $18k.

Seeing one in person in the racing red was quite the shock. If I hadn't caught the badge on the front, I'd have thought it was a Honda.

I'd LOVE to hear some other opinions about this car. Preferably from someone who's driven one. I suspect that it probably shows its econobox roots when driving, with a noisy interior, cheap, plastic that creaks, and so forth. From what I can see, it looks like there's potentially some significant blind spots in the back, so proper mirror adjustment would be very important.

Hats off to Kia, trying to get a little further away from their econobox mold.

World building part 2: Details matter. Precision, perhaps not so much.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:24:00 +0000

Let me qualify this by "this is my opinion. There are many like (and probably more unlike) it. This one is mine."

Being human is a study in what some have termed as "beautiful mess". We often strive for perfection and usually fail to achieve it.

And to be completely honest, that's not all bad. "There is no art in perfection. There is no perfection in art." I am a firm believer in this statement. I find it borne out in many things, such as the fact that humans are not perfectly symmetrical. Anything that can be made perfect can be made perfect again. That is mass production, not art. There is nothing inherently WRONG with this either, but it is my take on it.

All of that said, I say this with all the care I can muster for writers as artists: The reader typically doesn't care about precision when it comes to numbers. All they need is reference or something close. Science fiction writers tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to an excessive amount of precision when it comes to numbers. It's almost as if the thought of a rough number when it comes to speed is considered a bad thing by some of them. I (as I'm certain others) find the overly precise numbers jarring and distracting.

This falls back to "being human". Precision is required in some things. Engines are built to thousandths of an inch. But the reality of it is, in the car, the gauge doesn't *really* need numbers because we know that it "should be about there". This kind of thing pervades life. We know when somethings "correct" when it sits inside of arbitrary tolerances that we find through observation. We know that when it gets outside that tolerance something's wrong. There's no precision there, but it works organically, and generally works well.

With that out of the way, let's look at an example that I found online.

I found this with StumbleUpon (and found it interesting enough to continue reading): http://www.cygnuswar.com/2009/10/episode-50-sky-of-memories.html

The paragraph that I'm going to excerpt here is the one that inspired this post. I will qualify all of this with a "I haven't read the rest of the story yet" so I don't know if the specifics really do play into story or not. If they do, I apologize in advance.

She swallowed in that moment, reflexively, and forced her eyes to focus on the Wallace class in the distance. Her rig’s PAT array had picked up Mac’s Slashdriver at 238 kilometers distant, closing in on a full burn of a few km/h over 1800 with the massive bulk of the starship hanging in blue nothingness another handful of kilometers behind him. Her own throttle was notched near half in conventional drive, 1522 km/h. 5, maybe 6 minutes out.

What struck me as strange in this is that the writer recognizes the entire idea behind human "fuzziness" when it comes to numbers. "5, maybe 6 minutes out" and "another handful of kilometers out" suggests this to me.

If the writer understands this, and gets it, why do they use specifics in other places: "238 kilometers distant", "1522 km/h". The blending of the two makes it especially jarring to me.

Were I to suggest a little bit of editing (and far be it from me to do so, as I, while I do write, often do so for my own pleasure, not for someone else to read), I would recommend the following:

She swallowed in that moment, reflexively, and forced her eyes to focus on the Wallace class in the distance. Her rig’s PAT array had picked up Mac’s Slashdriver at just under 250 klicks, closing in on a full burn around 1800 km/h with the massive bulk of the starship hanging in blue nothingness another handful of kilometers behind him. Her own throttle was notched near half in conventional drive, just over 1500 km/h. 5, maybe 6 minutes out.

It reads more organically. Everything flows in a fashion that doesn't jump from incredible precision to fuzziness. The numbers aren't distracting anymore, they're just indications that "one's moving slightly faster than the other, and they're not that far apart at those speeds", which I sincerely believe is what the author is trying to convey. Depending on the audience, the "5, maybe 6 minutes" thing could probably be left out, or replaces with "a handful of minutes at the most". This does get into the more subjective and style elements that are beyond the scope of this small post.

Fantasy writers aren't immune to this either, though they appear to be less inclined to fall into this trap. Age, however, seems to the area they are wont to use overly precise numbers.

When describing age, it is not necessary to use highly precise (or even loosely precise) numbers. Usually, you can get away without using a number at all. "Approaching middle age" is close enough for most people to get that "well, that one's in his thirties or so". "Just entering puberty". "Elderly". "Wizened". These are all great words and phrases that leaves the reader's imagination to work. And isn't that what we all want to do?

World building for fiction writers, part 1 in an ongoing series: An introduction

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:42:00 +0000

Let's get this out of the way right off: World building the correct way is hard(tm). Insanely hard. Just writing this series is looking insanely hard.

That said, so is writing anything longer than a short story. Which is what's brought us to here: if you are writing fantasy that's not based in a familiar environment (like, oh, say, documented historical or current Earth), or a pre-developed universe (Arda, Dragonlance, Forgotton Realms, etc), and longer than a novella, you are choosing to build your own world.

World building isn't a bad thing to do. Just understand that you *need* to do more work in one form or another for your writing to hang together well. Some people can hold all of the details of their created world in their head. I prefer a separate document that I can refer to, since my memory doesn't serve well due to the volume of stuff that's on my mind at any one time. Documenting it for me solidifies the concepts, and sometimes will help me develop parallel ideas that are related to the concept I'm working with at the time.

No matter what tracking method you choose to do, be certain you can track a volume of minutiae that can (read: will probably) grow very large, depending on how much detail you want to put into your world. I'm personally of the opinion that "details matter" (for reasons I will touch on later), so usually when I'm working on something like world building, I usually wind up with a large volume of stuff that never makes it into anything I'm writing, but does influence my writing both directly and indirectly.

Firstly, a well thought out world makes your future writing MUCH easier.

You know the rules, and what will work and what is improbable. You won't stomp on yourself in the future with stupid mistakes like Hollywood does all the time when it comes to computer technology, which those of us in the tech industry can find insanely distracting, because "It makes no sense". Which brings me to my second point.

A well constructed world helps us prevent distractions to the reader.

Let me be perfectly clear: You *NEVER* want a reader to say "that doesn't make sense". EVER. Keep this in mind as you write. If someone reading one of your works gets to the point of saying "That doesn't make sense", you, as a communicator, have failed to communicate something very important, or have transgressed something either stated or preconceived in your writing. Your story loses credibility, and as entertainers (yes, if we are writing fiction, we are entertainers, as well as communicators), if we break the suspension of disbelief, the reader will lose interest.

Details matter. Don't think otherwise.

Even if you don't use the details in your writing directly, you have them to refer back to. Details bring your writing alive. Knowing the minutiae of your world down to the shape of the average blade of grass may be a bit on the excessive side, but if you can do that, I encourage it. An example of where details come in handy:

Say that gravity on your new world is 1/6th Earth normal. This is roughly normal gravity on the moon for a reference.

Knowing this, we let the reader in on a few things without ever telling them "the gravity is 1/6 Earth normal", like the average human(oid) is close to 8' tall and very lanky, because vertical growth is less inhibited. They could bound with large leaps due to their long legs and light weight due to the lack of gravity. Flora would be the same: tall and lanky. The planet could either be very small, or be large and have very low density. If the planet is very small, it would rotate slower than the regular 24 hour day as to not sling off/tear the atmosphere. Perhaps it is a moon of a Earth sized planet, which brings up a whole NEW line of difficulties that I won't get into here. If you *do* have your new world as a moon of a larger planet, you can use photos of "Earthrise" as reference for describing the rise of the parent planet on your world.

Your planet's gravity is a detail. Not a huge detail (I say, tongue firmly planted in cheek), but a detail that can shape your writing. Details matter.

Stupid perl Tkx tricks, part 1 in an ongoing series: Tkx::tk___dialog

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:39:00 +0000

I'll drop snippets of code here when I get stuff to work.

I've been programming desktop tools with perl/Tkx for work. I know that some may call me insane for doing so, but I am fairly well versed with the language, and I like how it allows me (most of the time) to get stuff done, instead of fighting me. For the Tkx part of my work, I've been leaning heavily on Tk Docs.

While Tk docs is a GREAT resource (and I'll be sending this post to the maintainer of it), it is far from complete. Today, it was "the standard dialog boxes that I've found are not sufficient for my needs".

To expand: I needed a dialog that had 3 buttons titled "Yes", "No", and "Yes to All". None of the standard dialogs have this. The closest uses "Cancel" as the third button, which, while it would *work*, I think that it isn't really nice to treat the user that way. Or teach them bad habits.

Since Tkx is basically (by my understanding) translating Tkx specific perl directly to Tk commands, most (if not all) of the Tk reference commands should work. I found that you can make custom dialog boxes with buttons that return numbers corresponding to their position in the list with Tk, using Tk_dialog. To implement this with Tkx in perl, I used the following


use strict;
use Tkx;
my $user_response = Tkx::tk___dialog(
    "[window name]",
    "[window title]",
    "[text in body of dialog]",
    "[tk bmp library icon (may be left empty)]",
    "[default button (may be left empty)]",
    "[button 0 text]", 
    "[button 1 text]", 
    "[button n text]",
    );

$user_response will return a number corresponding with the button number. The dialog box *does not* blend well with the OS widget set, at least with ActivePerl 5.10 on Win32. The icon (if you use one. I haven't dug for a list of icons yet) is a black and white icon, and the font used in the body text does not match what is used everywhere else. The *buttons* do use the proper widget settings, however.

On failure...

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:07:00 +0000

This was brought about by a simple question posed by another: "If you could do one thing, with the guarantee of success, what would it be?". The follow up question was "Why are you not doing it?". Many in comments reflected that there is no such thing as a guarantee of success.

One definition of failure: an event that does not accomplish its intended purpose.

Yeah, that happens a lot. To all of us.

It's often not a good thing. It's nothing we strive for consciously.

But is it *always* a bad thing?

Let us set aside for a moment the idea that failure is always a bad thing, and focus on what failure represents.

To fail, in the definition represented above, must first be preceded by a purpose of goal.

One definition of purpose: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.

Taking these two ideas together, I submit that, while there is no reward in failure, there should not necessarily be shame in it either.

A person who failed has a dream, that they attempt to make reality. Just the initiative to step out of the safe zone to try can be cause for at least an appreciative nod. How many of us have stuck our neck out for some purpose we deemed good enough? How many of us even have a purpose better than "work 40 for a paycheck"? These questions make me uncomfortable myself.

Failure does not have to be the end of a goal. It is a set back. Ask anyone who writes code for a living. You write, you compile, you test, you debug, and repeat. If failure ended every goal, we'd still be writing with sticks in the sand.

Giving up, on the other hand, has no reward, except for lessons learned on the path. I speculate that in giving up, we give a tacit nod to the idea that perhaps our goal was ultimately unworthy of the time and energy we put into it. This is another admission that gives me uncomfortable pause.

In my profile, I give a sentence to dreams, failure, and surrender. I think it's worth quoting here, despite the fact that it may be somewhat self serving: "I find that dreams are malleable, and even if left unachieved, the ride can still be entertaining and rewarding, even if heartbreaking and depressing."

In my past, I have tried to realise dreams that I felt were worthy. I have failed miserably in them, due to a number of reasons. Some of my own doing, some because people suck. I am included in the latter statement as well. In the end, I am the one who made the decisions that I did that led me to the failure, and eventual shelving of these dreams. In that surrender, I have learned that sometimes, even tenacity cannot make some things work. "All of your decisions are half chance. So are everybody else's". There is wisdom to be gleaned from that statement, more than it would appear. I leave the analysis of that as an exercise to the reader.

Someone has to make fries. Just remember, they may have big dreams that they wanted to fulfil as well. They may just have been "right place, wrong time", and had to let them go because of other decisions they made. They may have been unrealistic. They may have been inane and unworthy goals. If they had the initiative to *try*, they have been true to the human spirit.

Find a worthy goal. Grind at it until you succeed. Mine is currently be the best husband and father I can.

Writing believable antagonists

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:19:00 +0000

One of my pet peeves in most fiction is the lack of a believable antagonist. Here's a small selection of bad antagonist ideas that are used across the board:

Evil for evil's sake. This antagonist has no real reason to be evil/do evil, they just do it because they can.
Evil because it can grant immortality. This antagonist has latched onto an idea that promises immortality, yet to do so, they have to perform some sort of horrific act that any sane thinking person would not do.
Evil by nature/nurture. This antagonist was "born into" whatever position that they are in, be it a psychotic serial murderer, or dictator that is to "carry on the tradition of their lineage".

Bleh. Drivel. Some of it can be entertaining drivel (Harry Potter is a current example of this), but really, it's at best brain candy, as opposed to good stories.

Let's put aside the evil versus good discussion for a moment and discuss psychology for a moment.

Most antagonists are human, or (as in most fantasy settings) have similar mores to humans concerning the basic principals of life and the treatment of others. Most people have some sort of internal moral compass. Some may not match our own, but they have a set of morals that guide their decisions. Most people would rather be left alone to their own devices. "You let me play here, I'll let you play there, we'll be kosher." There are outliers, power grabbers, those that wish to be benevolent dictators, but honestly, most of us want to do our own thing, and not be bothered too much.

Now, before we continue with the idea of believable antagonists, let's look at what makes a great, believable protagonist.

Most good fiction is written in such a manner that the reader tries to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. We live these characters lives with them. We hurt when they hurt. We celebrate internally their victories. Good protagonists we can empathize with. They breathe. They live in our minds. The best protagonists will move our emotions and lives in such a manner that it gives us pause as we reflect on our own lives and wonder how better to emulate the good qualities of the protagonist.

One of the most common definitions of "hero" is "a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength". I refine this further by saying that a hero is "a normal person performing extraordinary feats in extraordinary circumstances".

A good hero we can click with. We *want* them to win. We *want* Joe Sixpack to become an avenger and kick the crap out of people who deserve it. We *want* to be that person, because, from our perspective, they *are* the everyman, living with unspeakable demons in their lives, and dealing with them in a manner that idealizes the human spirit of tenacity and justice.

So, with the above in mind, let me break down what to me makes a believable antagonist:

They are the same kind of person that the hero is. The best antagonists are cut from a similar mold that the protagonist is. The closer the better. It lets us know that there *is* a darker path that the protagonist could have walked, but chose not to because of decisions made, and events witnessed.
They have a noble goal. The thing they fight the protagonist for is admirable. They desire good ends to their actions. They believe, and can make you believe that their goal is just.
They, like the protagonist, believe they are on the right path to reaching their goal. They have considered options, weighed consequences, and struggled with the decision that they have come to. They walk the path they do, not because it is right, they walk the path because it is the only way they see they can attain their goal.

Get close on the three above, and you'll have a readable antagonist that is a worthy adversary to your everyman hero.

An example of a *great* antagonist, from the most unlikely of places, Hollywood: Magneto from "X-men, the movie".

Magento and his adversary Doctor Xavier are very similar: Both (while extraordinary) are cut from similar molds as people who have extraordinary abilities. They both have the same goal of integrating these extraordinary people that have started evolving from humanity into the rest of humanity in a manner that they can coexist peacefully.

Magneto, however, has come to the conclusion that humanity will not accept this new stratification, these superior beings, peacefully, if at all. The rest of humanity will only accept this if the leaders of the world deem it necessary for them to do so. His plan is to forcibly cause this transformation in the leaders of the world. Even if it may cause the death of some or all of these leaders.

That, my friends, is an *excellent* protagonist, and the story told is wonderful.

Concerning zombies

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:59:00 +0000

I've had a few friends try to get me involved in one of Valve's latest games, Left 4 Dead. I keep telling them "zombie hacking isn't my gig.". They keep telling me "But it's a cool game!", and list off lots of reasons concerning the AI, objective based play style, and other things. If I didn't have other things vying for my attention, and a bit more disposable income, I'd consider it.

However, since there's obviously interest, why not list a few things that have piqued my interest that do refer to zombies?:

A fan made music video of the Jonathan Coulton song "RE: Your Brains". Typical Coulton funny. The juxtaposition of loose, jangly guitar music with heavy pop influences and the subject material of the lyrics just makes me laugh.

A fan made music video of the No More Kings song "Zombie Me". Similar description as above.

Wikipedia article concerning the novel "World War Z", which is supposed to be a great book. I've been meaning to borrow it from one of my friends for a while now.

Why I prefer Open Source for most things.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:21:00 +0000

This is a rant that I've had for a while. I've finally articulated it properly now, in a conversation with my boss. This post refines and expresses those ideas further.

It typically makes no business sense to use closed tools. If it's an operating system, a desktop application, or a service. Here's why:

It's all about the data, dummy.

None of us really cares *how* we get the data we want. We just want the data that we need, if it's music, video, text, photos, whatever in the least painless method possible.

So, assuming we agree on the fact that it's all about the data, it's a small step to reason that the tools on the back end *really* don't matter anymore.

So why use tools that cost money for something you can't modify?

To be more specific, why not use tools that don't cost anything, that allow you (or someone you hire) to write other tools for you, with all the code there for you to make modifications to suit your environment?

With closed source stuff, you get whatever documentation the vendor gives you, whatever APIs the vendor gives you, and maybe some undocumented stuff that you or someone else has found. If you can't get it done, you have to switch tools, sometimes with great cost fiscally and training. On top of all that, you have licensing issues to deal with, sometimes becoming a complete nightmare in tracking what machines have what software and moving said software around as machines get retired or repurposed.

I know the problems with training someone on a new version of a piece of software. Office 2007 for example has made things terrible by pitching the entire interface that was being used into the can and placing an entirely new interface in front of the user. Why not move to OpenOffice at that point? It will import nearly every document produced by anything. Even Office 2007 documents. It can save in most formats too, but that is mostly a moot point. It'll even dump pdfs, which is available on almost every device and OS under the sun.

That's just one example. Here's another that hits closer to home for me:

We have an appliance made by a company. It produces the very heart of our work for us. The company builds a custom piece of hardware they stick inside of a commodity box. This custom card has drivers that the company writes, as well as a software package to utilize all the functionality on the card. Sounds like a perfect place to use open software to keep costs down.

The thing is, they haven't. They run Windows Storage Server 2003 on the box. It ships with a copy of Office on board. It has a commercial editing tool to edit the data that it generates. It ships with commercial recovery software, commercial anti-virus software. They could have used open alternatives, paid another developer $150000 for a year to work out the issues that they found with the open software, and still sold the appliances for the same cost as they do now. I figure they have at least $1000 to $2000 in commercial software on the box. Sell 150 appliances, the developer is paid for, as well as all the licensing. No other investment required, except for the next version of the software/hardware combination that will need to be authored. You could contract the developer instead of hire them and keep that cost down even further.

There are plenty of other examples and places for open tools as well. Mail, web services, going so far as to operating systems. Ask Ernie Ball. Roasted by the BSA to the tune of $65000, and another $35000 for lawyers to talk them down to that number. Due solely to licensing.

Open tools allow you to build wrenches and understand completely the weaknesses and strength of your new wrench.

And let's be honest: We all like good tools.

Pictures of Alex

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:20:00 +0000

http://s549.photobucket.com/albums/ii367/mrsslaq/

Welcome Alexander James Ellis!

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:43:00 +0000

8 lbs, 6 oz, 20.25". Healthy. Pics coming sometime tonight.

Doc says "It's time"

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Doc says that with all the monitoring looking like it is, a c-section is the way to go now. We'll be in the O. R. within the hour.

Progress report

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:53:00 +0000

No progress, but lots of pain. Drugs on the way, thankfully!

It's that time.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:10:00 +0000

As many of you know, the Mrs.is great with child. The doc is saying too great. Today is the 42nd week of the journey. Apparently, after this time the likelihood of complications due to size and other issues.

We're both nervous and excited. It will be an interesting next chapter to our lives.

More news as events warrant.

More than enough rope.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:41:00 +0000

One of the double edged swords with any *NIX based operating system is that it will give you enough rope to hang yourself with. Without exception.

I was testing a new way of mirroring my data from some cloud storage that the company I work for has. One of the ways to do this is with rsync. After hammering out all of the fiddly details with how the host deals with the secure side of it, and ensuring that I could sync the copy the data properly, I started playing with the ability to delete the files off of the local drive.

And... yes, yes... deleteing? Oops.

It worked exactly as advertised. Fortunately I wasn't in a directory that had anything incredibly important that couldn't be replaced.

Ah the joys of learning new tools.

Long time, no post.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:13:00 +0000

A lot is going on in my life right now. Most of you know about it, but for those few who don't, here's the short-short version.

Michelle is pregnant.

I'm not sleeping well, partially because of that.

I'm switching jobs.

I'm not sleeping well, partially because of that.

I'm making stupid mistakes because I'm not sleeping well.

I'm not sleeping well, partially because of that.

More news as events warrant.

Finding truth in strange places.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:26:00 +0000

I just got finished watching "Muppets Treasure Island".

Yeah, I know, doesn't exactly go with the title of the post. Hang with me a bit, It'll get there.

For those who are not familiar with Jim Henson's creation, I would point you to your favorite online DVD retailer to purchase the movies and seasons 1 - 3 on DVD of "The Muppet Show". Truly funny stuff. Much of the same antics done on the Simpsons, with more slapstick, less lowbrow toilet humour, and guest stars more in line with the time. All in live action, however.

One of the characters is Gonzo, a blue hooked-nosed "whatever" as he proclaims himself to be. He has a very admirable trait: "Embrace where you are".

Now, those words are never uttered by anyone. It's just the way Gonzo is. A few select quotes:

Rizzo: Terrific. Captured by crazed wild pigs and sacrificed hideously before a pagan altar.
Gonzo: Are we lucky or what?

Dr. Livesay: [looking at the treasure map] Say, I know what's happening here. You chaps are planning to sail to this island, aren't you? To dig up this treasure.
Jim Hawkins: Yes, but we must be quiet about it.
[whisper]
Jim Hawkins: There are pirates looking for this map.
Gonzo: [normal voice] Yeah, and they want to KILL us for it! Isn't that exciting?

Kermit: [watching Gonzo fly over the fair with a handful of balloons] Hey Gonzo, what are you doing?
Gonzo: About seven knots!

[In a hot-air balloon]
Gonzo: I'd like to try this without a balloon.
Kermit: Try what? Plummeting?
Gonzo: Yeah.

Now, it may seem strange to call this an admirable trait, but if you look deeper than the superficial gag, you see a person in a trying situation, attempting to get the most from it. It's nearly Job-esqe.

Then again, perhaps being sick has rattled my braincells too much over the past few days.

Open letter to the Obama campaign:

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:54:00 +0000

To the Obama campaign:

You have been running on the idea of "hope". We all hope for something. Here is what I hope for from the next president of the United States:

I hope for a leader that will encourage less government.
I hope for a leader that will encourage more personal liberty.
I hope for a leader that will encourage less restrictive firearms laws.
I hope for a leader that will appoint justices that interpret the constitution in a very narrow way, as the forefathers initially indicated they wanted to have happen in the 10th amendment.
I hope for a leader that will encourage tax reform that does not inequitably burden those whom others consider "rich", as one whom does not fall under said description.
I hope for a leader that will encourage social security reform that will prevent the system from bankrupting the government in the next 30 years.
I hope for a leader that will take fights to those that would do us harm, preemptively.
I hope for a leader that will encourage the idea of "personal responsibility", moving away from the "entitlement" system that we work on now.
I hope for a leader that will encourage reform of, or at the very least open up for further scrutiny by the public, the vote buying system in congress, also known as earmarks.
I hope for a leader that will that will make hard decisions because are right, not because they are popular.

Will senator Obama give me that which I hope for from the next leader of the United States?

The one true test of quality engineering:

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:42:00 +0000

Yes, I know it says "code quality", but the idea can be applied to all disciplines of engineering, in my opinion.

As much as I love to use Linux....

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:14:00 +0000

I'll probably read this later and say "what the heck was I thinking", but at the time (0430 Saturday morning), I felt I should say something.

The performance is terrible on my G4 iMac. Slow, slow, slow, at least with Ubuntu 7.04. 7.10 and 8.04 cause other problems with the iMac that I'll not get into here.

The biggest problem (I believe) is driver support. The video support works in just the most basic of fashions. None of the 3d acceleration works, so all of the eyecandy that's available doesn't work. The power management for the display doesn't work, so you leave the backlight on the LCD all the time. The WOL functionality doesn't work. A bunch of other stuff that, in the grand scheme, isn't that big of a deal, but put together, just annoyed the heck out of me.

So, since all of the G4 LCD iMacs shipped with OSX, I decided to reinstall it on this machine. It works fairly well, with some caveats:

10.3 (Tiger) has its own share of problems, but it is what shipped with this machine, and since I'm cheap, I'm not going to shell for 10.5. Yet. It's the last PowerPC version going to be manufactured, so it may come way down in price if I wait until the next version. That being said, I have worked through most of the stupidity of Tiger, and am fairly happy with the finished result.

The monitor now goes to sleep as expected. I have the openVPN server running on the machine again using an older version of tunnelblick which has a compiled version of openVPN included. Apache (1.x, unfortunately. I think I can upgrade it, but I'm not too worried right now) is running on the machine. OpenSSH server is running. Synergy for desktop control. Windows shares are talking. Everything that I had on the Linux box, I have on OSX 10.3. Older versions of most of it, yes, but functional versions. And the desktop is much more responsive.

The biggest problem with 10.3 is that most of the applications that I want to use are currently complied for 10.4 and later. Apparently there was some sort of major architectural change that happened at 10.4 that I'm not completely clear on. Something major, however, as most everything that I wanted to use I had to download previous versions.

Perhaps in the future I'll give Linux another swing on the iMac. Right now, however... I can see the allure of OSX. A lot of the power of the UNIX (BSD, techically) OS with the polish of a great MacOS UI.

The (not so) good old days.

noreply@blogger.com (CaptSlaq) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:33:00 +0000

One of the thing that I hear when I discuss modern cars with people who used to love cars is "All of the electronics on a car make it impossible to work on!".

Umm... No. And I have the perfect example.

Fuel injection is a beautiful thing. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise, because of the alternative: Carburetors.

To explain it simply, a carburetor is essentially a (or several) very precisely machined tube(s) on top of your engine, that allows vacuum to suck fuel out of a precisely machined hole in the side of said tube(s), that has a reservoir of gasoline inside of it. On top of the tubes, are precisely machined flaps that effectively control the size of the tube. These flaps are connected to your accelerator pedal.

More simply put, it's a very precisely CONTROLLED FUEL LEAK. That doesn't adjust for anything, except the amount of air flowing by the jet.

Yeah... that was great when we didn't have options. Things have evolved a tiny bit since then.

We now have the ability to tell how far your lead foot is mashing that pedal. A throttle position sensor does this simply.

We now have the ability to measure how much air is rushing into the engine when you do mash that pedal. Mass airflow sensors do this for us.

We now have the ability to tell how dense that air is. A simple intake air temperature or manifold air pressure sensor does this for us.

We now have the ability to tell at what point each cylinder of the engine is in, via crank and cam sensors.

With this plethora of information, we can deliver fuel to the cylinder right as it starts down on its intake stroke. In precisely the correct amount for the amount of air that is being drawn into the cylinder. A good thing.

Why in the hell would we want to go back to a controlled leak? Really? I mean, it *really* sucked when driving across country, when you got into significantly different elevations than where you usually drove the vehicle, because one of two things happened:

It belched black smoke when driving up the hill, because the carburetor was set up for the soup that people at sea level call air and delivered too much fuel.

It ran hot and started knocking because the carburetor was set up to to have an auxiliary O2 tank on top to deliver enough air to actually burn fuel, thus not delivering enough fuel.

Either way, the performance suffered when the elevation changed more than a couple of thousand feet.

Closer to home, fuel efficiency went way up when we switched to fuel injection. Along with more precise measurement (due to knowing how much to deliver for the amount of air) and timing (due to knowing where every cylinder is at any given time), we can now also more precisely place the fuel at the valve, instead of letting it puddle inside of the intake. Ford is currently working on a direct injection system that puts the fuel directly into the combustion chamber, making the placement even more precise.

Tools are available for those who do wish to spin their own wrench. The computer is very good about giving very detailed troubleshooting information as well, at least on the later model vehicles.

There are places where technology has killed the art of the car. Fuel delivery and other engine management is not one of them.