multigeek

Drugs night

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:12:49 GMT

So we were already having a lot of fun when they started passing the drugs around. First a bit of heroin. That was, of course, followed by crack. Then was some old-school powder cocaine. Finally, there was a huge bundle of pot. Of course, it was all in heat-sealed plastic with evidence labels. The citizens' police academy is continuing to be a fun experience. They also passed around an aerosol spray can where the bottom unscrews to reveal a secret compartment (that was previously full of cocaine and cash).

September 13th, 1999

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 23:47:10 GMT

It's Space 1999 Day! It's been nine years since the moon broke away from Earth. I just watched another episode.

Alligator!

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:28:12 GMT

They're looking for an alligator in Framingham. How bizarre.

Vinyl Mathematics

Sun, 04 May 2008 03:37:56 GMT

So I may have mentioned that for Christmas I received a turntable with a USB port so that I can archive my old vinyl records. As a part of a fund raiser for our church youth group (they're going to The Philippines this summer), I've offered to convert records to CDs. Anyway, I was recording one record today that had a skip--it repeated a section twice, then continued on with the rest of the song. I'm using Audacity to clean up the recordings, but I couldn't find a plugin for correcting skips. Well, I realized that I didn't need a plugin. I set a mark before the start, the calculated the number of samples, set the region size to that size, and hit cut. Now it sounds perfect as if there were never a skip.

(The calculation is rather simple: I'm recording at the default CD-compatible rate of 44.1 KHz, so there are 44100 samples per second. Multiply that by 60, then divide by 33.3333333333, and I have the samples per revolution. Then multiply by the number of times the record skipped back, two in this case, and I know how many samples to extract.)

I am very pleased with myself.

I know it's spring when...

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:14:28 GMT

I don't have a single definition of what marks the start of spring, but I do have several thoughts:

*) The first day that I notice a robin (Sunday, 23 March)

*) The first day when there is no ice on the reservoir on the way to work (Friday, 28 March)

*) The first day I notice buds on the trees (Saturday, 29 March)

*) The first day when the average low temperature is above freezing (Sunday, 30 March)

*) The first day that I notice a robin (Sunday, 23 March)

All-in-all, it seems that spring really is starting close to the equinox this year.

Believe Day

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:03:49 GMT

Remember, today is "Believe Everything You Read on the Internet Day."

You know it's true. You read it on the Internet.

Signs of Spring

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:03:03 GMT

I've never liked the modern definition of the seasons. Tying seasons to the solstices and equinoxes doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. So I ask this question: If there were no rule as to when spring begins, how would you know that spring has begun? What is different about the first day of spring from the last day of winter?

I have some ideas, and I'll post them later, so as not to bias any responses.

Superbowl Party

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:17:56 GMT

I expect anyone who is reading this has already received an invitation to our annual Superbowl party, but if for some reason you haven't, you are invited. Just show up at our house at around 6pm. If you're here before 5:30, you're on the setup crew.

D&D Character Meme

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:27:10 GMT

Everyone else is doing it.

Boy, that was a long quiz.

I Am A: True Neutral Human Wizard (6th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-16
Constitution-14
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-13
Charisma-16

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?

Halloween

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:02:30 GMT

I decided to keep a log of trick-or-treaters this year. From 6:13pm to 8:57pm, we had a mere 13 kids. Two of them were older (13ish?) kids with costumes that were nothing more than sports jerseys. We need a separate set of lame candy for lame kids, especially considering that we give out full-sized candy bars. (What's fun about fun-size?)

The dad accompanying one of our visitors said that she told him to stop at our house because it looked so neat. We had orange and black luminaries lining the driveway, four or five carved pumpkins, spooky sounds, a skeleton, a tombstone, and a few other things that were mostly lost in the darkness hanging from our trees.

I guess that kids don't target our neighborhood because the houses are set so far back that it takes forever to go from house to house.

Tale of a waggy tail

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:01:22 GMT

Daisy still has life in her. She often yelps when she gets up from her bad leg, but she still has a waggy tail, and she still has life in her face. So we've canceled her appointment today, and we'll see how much longer she decides to stay with us. We know it won't be long, but she's not ready yet.

Daisy passing soon

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:09:04 GMT

We have two dogs. Daisy is our greyhound. She had a three-year racing career, and then was adopted by a family that kept her for six years. We've now had her for three-and-a-half years. In August, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. We've managed her pain, but now her leg is swelling up, and she is refusing to eat. We expect to be saying or last farewell on Saturday.

Boy, that sucks!

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:13:13 GMT

...in a good way.

We now have a Dyson DC-17 Animal. Sure, our carpets were in a rather dismal state, with our old vacuum cleaner having died a few weeks ago, but that doesn't explain filling up the canister seven times. And our carpets aren't just clean on the top; they really feel different when you walk on them in bare feet.

We're very happy.

Oh, and thanks to monkey_puncher, I saved a good bit off the list price at bestvacuum.com.

Vacuum

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:41:48 GMT

Our 15-year-old vacuum cleaner died, and now our carpets are in desperate need of dog hair removal. Our Roomba still works, but the battery doesn't have much life left, so we really need a new vacuum.

In looking, I found the Dyson vacuums: http://www.dyson.com/homepage.asp

Does anyone have any experience with them? Are they really worth the money?

Doctor Who: Gridlock

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:37:46 GMT

As you may know, I'm working my way through Doctor Who, and I'm near the end of season 4 (the first season of the second Doctor). Meanwhile, I also watch the new episodes. So I was just watching the latest Doctor Who episode (season 29, episode 3) "Gridlock." Boy was I surprised to see the return of a monster from a lost fourth season episode! I feel a bit better about sitting through the reconstruction now.

If you don't know, many episodes from the first two Doctors have been lost. All that remains are the soundtracks (recorded by fans from the original broadcasts), still photos from the production, and occasional clips (often from censor boards, so most death scenes are intact). Fan groups have reconstructed the episodes, using still photos, subtitles, and occasionally narration, along with the soundtracks and surviving clips. Some of them are painful to watch, but most aren't that bad--you can get into them much like watching a foreign film with subtitles.

Tax Geek

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:14:42 GMT

I completed our taxes last week. Yes, I procrastinated. Usually I do our taxes by hand, but this year I used Tax Geek. It's open-source tax software. The idea is pretty simple--combine some html, perl scripts, and some pdf manipulation. It downloads pdf versions of the tax forms from the IRS, and then generates copies with your tax information overlaid on top.

It worked great for me, except for one schedule which didn't print right, so I filled in that one by hand; no big deal. Hopefully next year they'll get support for state taxes.

Of course, the IRS isn't interested in supporting non-commercial tax preparation software, so I still had to mail it in.

The upshot is that I get a federal refund, and we had to pay an additional $2 in state taxes. Somehow the new rule that you have to round to the nearest dollar makes me feel like I'm being nickeled and dimed.

Super Bowl Party

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:04:52 GMT

It's almost time for the annual Crow Super Bowl party.

As usual, we don't really care much about football. I'll be rooting for the Broncos, while Cat will cheer for the Red Sox.

Sunday, February 4th.

The game starts at 6:25pm, so we'll expect most people will show up at around 6.

Please bring a drink, an appetizer, or a dessert, but most importantly, bring yourself.

Please feel free to bring kids and friends with you.

You are welcome to come, even if you don't like football--it should still be lots of fun.

Please RSVP so that we know who and how many to expect.

Directions available on request.

We have two kids and two dogs.

No mail

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 03:35:51 GMT

For the first time in many years (probably 10 or more), I have no email. Both my work and personal in-boxes were completely empty the last time I checked them. Hooray!

Last man on earth

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:19:20 GMT

I am the last man on earth without a cell phone. At least for another day.

Evil lights

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:50:48 GMT

I have some Christmas lights. They're strings of 150 bulbs, and the box says that if one burns out, the others stay lit. Well, the box lied. It turns out that they lights are set up in segments of 50 bulbs, and if one burns out, that segment dies. How am I supposed to figure out which bulb is dead? I would try every one, except that it's very difficult to pull them out. I tried a visual inspection, and I did find one dead bulb, but it seems that segment had more than one failure (I verified that the dead bulb brought down another segment when swapping bulbs). Ugh!

LEGO fun

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:43:28 GMT

You may have heard about the LEGO build that I've been doing with my club in Manchester, NH. The club web site now has a write-up about it, along with lots of photos.

http://www.nelug.org/article.php?story=20061130213415274&sid=cc116c3d7a38a7ee77130814512937f1

Saftey update

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:41:09 GMT

So we have a bunch of those child-safety outlet covers--you know, the little plastic plugs that stop a toddler from sticking something in an outlet. Anyway, I've found a new use for them. I was putting up some Christmas lights in front of our house, and they have another outlet at the end to let you chain strings of lights together. That's fine indoors, and fine outdoors as long as it doesn't rain or snow. So as you've guessed by now, my solution is to use the outlet covers to close off the ends of the light strings to protect them from the elements.

Torchwood

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:57:36 GMT

This weekend, I watched the first two episodes of Torchwood, the new Doctor Who spin-off series that just started on BBC 3. My first impression is very positive. It looks like they'll have very little interaction with the regular Doctor Who series, and they're definitely not even pretending that this one is a kids' show. Think of it more like the BBC doing "Men in Black" as a TV series in the Doctor Who universe.

This helps make up for only having half-seasons of Doctor Who now. (The season is only 13 episodes; whereas a standard American series has 22 episodes, which is down from 26 a number of years ago.)

Political ad

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:19:19 GMT

I'm not endorsing this candidate, but I am endorsing his advertising agency. If you haven't seen it, it's on the front page of the web site.

http://www.christy2006.com/

Roomba Surgery

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:56:17 GMT

A few years ago, we got a Roomba (the Pro Elite model). Shortly after it arrived, it broke, and they sent us a replacement. We only had to send back one critical part, so we now have spare parts. Unfortunately, it broke again after the warranty expired. Today, I determined to fix it.

I took it all apart, with much time savings thanks to a guide on Roomba disassembly. It's nice that it's assembled with screws, so you can dissect it.

After taking it apart twice, I finally figured out that I just hadn't re-installed the beater brush correctly after I had cleaned it. Gack!

Well, the battery is recharging now, so tomorrow we can go back to running Roomba when using the exercise machine.

Of course, we still may be tempted to get a new Roomba For Pets. They are now specially-engineered for dealing with lots of pet hair. I wonder how much difference it makes?