Ramblings of a Martian

Twitter posts from 08 November to 14 November

2009-11-15T08:00:11Z

sun 01:29pm	I've been taking sudafed longer than you've been a pharmacist. Please stop reading me the warnings from the package.
sun 02:01pm	At the steamcon meeting.
sun 06:03pm	Yup. Pretty sure I'm sick. Starting to feel slightly feverish, on top of headache and ear congestion.
mon 10:50am	Why is it that the only IMs I get saying someone thinks I'm hot are all from spammers?
mon 12:42pm	o/~ I haven't thought of you in fifteen days and today I still won't think of you o/~
mon 12:44pm	@lindvall Ew. Yeah. Just... ew. No.
mon 12:46pm	@vixy Low, last I checked. 98.1, as of last night, almost 2° below normal. ::(
mon 01:11pm	@lindvall Not remotely.
mon 01:47pm	@vixy Depends on your point of view. To a Plutonian, I'm instant death at 50 paces. shrug
mon 01:59pm	I've made three commits for two tickets today. I think it's time to crawl into bed for a while, before I get any dizzier.
mon 03:36pm	Hey! AppleTV will now play a sequence of items, at least from a playlist. Wonder when it started doing that.
mon 03:58pm	@firesign3000 just yesterday I was saying it couldn't, so I'm pleased to be wrong.
mon 04:32pm	Who wants to bring us dinner?
mon 06:13pm	Pondering registering (my name backwards in Armenia) to use as my own short url tool, just for links to my stuff.
mon 06:21pm	A bit expensive, tho.
mon 06:23pm	Hm. Klout is interesting, in a mildly offensive way. I like how everybody's value is now judged by friendcount. Reminds me of FB.
mon 06:24pm	(yes, yes, I'm over-simplifying.)
mon 06:35pm	Ok. I give up on your entire gods-forsaken species. There is no hope left for you: http://ff.im/-bdQN0
tue 08:36am	@firesign3000 That sucks. The mini9 uses an Atom proc.
tue 11:39am	Wow. These earplugs are extremely effective and a little too large for my tiny little ear canals.
tue 01:49pm	Hm. 3mbit 'business ethernet' for what I'm already paying for a T1? Might be worthwhile, if I can get it here.
tue 01:58pm	Stupid telecom infrastructure. We're 13.6kft from the CO, and biz-E can only go 9k, 11 under some circumstances.
tue 02:00pm	I think I'll move downstairs, where I can sit on the couch, with a blanket.
wed 08:08am	Google emails me $100 in free adwords credit two months ago, and I used it. Now they smail me another, and it won't let me use it. Tacky.
wed 12:28pm	Hm. Invites: 30 gWave, 10 Brizzly. DM me if you care.
wed 03:34pm	Ooookay. No longer logging Adium into my primary Yahoo account, due to spam.
wed 03:36pm	Also, I'm attempting to upgrade one of DECtops (thereus) from Jaunty to Karmic. I expect it to screw up the video again.
wed 04:23pm	@mcmoots MOO!
wed 04:42pm	@drakemonger s'why I don't draw anymore.
wed 08:32pm	ok, I can no longer see all of my email accounts listed on a single screen in my iphone's settings app.
wed 08:32pm	@CupcakeGoth Ok, it looks tasty. What is it?
wed 09:46pm	@ladydrakaina you can send people to me for a while. I've got 20+ left.
thu 10:58am	ACK. Just watched 30sec of Smarter than a 5th Grader. How can an adult be so stupid slash ignorant?!?
thu 10:59am	IT'S A VERB YOU BRAINLESS WOMAN!
thu 01:25pm	@hollyking technically, I'm from suburban Kansas. And yes! Even the rural farmers know what a verb is!
fri 02:08pm	Amazon: when ordering same-day delivery, 'delivery estimate' would be more useful with time, not date.
fri 02:15pm	Learning me some Git, so I can start using it for three different projects, already in progress. I am so behind the times. sigh
fri 02:32pm	@arjache I've no choice on 2/3, so figure I may as well go for 3/3. But yeah, it's a steepish curve coming from cvs/perforce/svn.
fri 02:37pm	@spinnerin I like the power, but when I have to read a book to figure out how to roll back a change, it makes me feel stupid.
fri 02:39pm	Also on my list of things to learn: rspec, cucumber, deeper capistrano trickery, better rails templates. sigh, again.
fri 02:55pm	@Elocinnuala be careful with that stuff. Clinical studies show it to be highly addictive.
fri 09:32pm	And that was my first push to github. Whee.
fri 11:48pm	two half gig memory units to xfer everything from the old 360 to the new, check. one wall mounting arm for the bedroom tv, check.
fri 11:48pm	tv isn't quite where i wanted it, but good enough. maybe get a longer arm later. xboxes are all set up, 'cept for networking the old one.
sat 12:23pm	I have 11.5mo to figure out how to work "Intro to Advanced Computational Alchemy" into something I can take to SteamCon.

Shared Posts from 23 October to 11 November

2009-11-12T08:00:08Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

Pundit Kitchen: Lol News and Lol Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and more - POLITICAL PARTIES - POLITICAL PARTIES He was against 'em. Too bad the idea didn't stick. (George Washington) People barely remember him … Picture by: dunno source Caption by: EWAdams via Poster Builder » Recaption This! » View All Captions

The Red Ferret Journal - Ridgeblade - Wind powered generator for the roof - The Ridgeblade is a wind powered generator designed for installation on the roof of houses. [...] 160 words | permalink | One comment | digg this

MAKE Magazine - Teacup Stirling engine - Gorgeous teacup Stirling engine, spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool. From MAKE magazine: Check out MAKE, Volume 17: The Lost Knowledge issue! Buy your copy in the Maker Shed, Subscribe to MAKE, or Access the Digital Edition (if you're already a subscr[...]

MAKE Magazine - Artist's golden penny found in circulation - Jack Daws made ten counterfeit pennies from gold for an art show in LA in 2007. He put one of the pennies into circulation at the airport, possibly never to see it again. Well, just last month, Jessica in Brooklyn found the penny, which is worth abou[...]

Lifehacker - Make Cookies in 90 Seconds with Your Waffle Iron [MacGyver Tip] - Baking cookies in your oven is fine and all, but if you want to turn out some tasty cookies in a very short time, consider turning to your trusty waffle iron. Turns out you're only 90 seconds away from crispy, chewy, cookie-goodness. Photo by Fine Li[...]

MAKE Magazine - How-To: Spider web balloons - So, the stuff inside the balloon that makes the web is called HI-FLOAT, and it's a commercial product actually sold for injecting into helium balloons to make them retain their helium longer. It forms a skin on the inside of the balloon and keeps th[...]

Lifehacker - Eat More Black Pepper to Increase Your Food's Nutritional Value [Health] - Black pepper is often thought of as a last minute ditch to save a flavorless dish, but it really plays a powerful role in your body's ability to absorb nutrients from the foods you eat--even the healthy ones. Photo by Jon Campbell The amount of nutri[...]

MAKE Magazine - Humongous treehouse - That's no treehouse, that's a foresthouse! The Worlds Greatest TreeHouse Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!

Lifehacker - Use Your Dishwasher to Clean Potatoes for Holiday Meals [Clever Uses] - With the holidays quickly approaching, many of us find ourselves cooking for more people than usual. If you're looking to cut a few corners and save some time, try washing your potatoes in the dishwasher. Photo by FotoosVanRobin Obviously this isn't [...]

Hack a Day - Psystar taunts Apple a second time - As if bankruptcy shenanigans and an unresolved exchange of lawsuits with Apple weren't enough, Mac clone maker Psystar is really swatting the beehive now with the release of Rebel EFI, a $50 software package that promises a straight[...]

www.telegraph.co.uk - Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish - Telegraph - Shared by Audrey Jellyfish that weigh up to 200kg! A 10-ton fishing boat has been sunk by gigantic jellyfish off eastern Japan.

russell davies - availability subject to availability - Sometimes we should step back and examine the conventions we use. They may not be helping.

blog.craftzine.com - Craftzine.com blog : Biomedical Lab Uses Shrinky Dinks Instead of $100K Diagnostic Chips - Shared by Audrey Awesome. Michelle Khine's lab at UC Irvine couldn't afford the $100K equipment to make microfluidic chips, a sheet of material with tiny channels used for certain diagnostic tests, so she made her own with Shrinky Dinks

Warren Ellis - Moving Away From The Digital City - (I'm in a foul mood today.) All you people with your augmented reality unlocking the digital city outernet designing the sentient city rhetoric and toys? You know what you're making? Street Clippy. Now fuck off and make something that'll do useful[...]

Coding Horror - Whitespace: The Silent Killer - Ever have one of those days where everything you check into source control is wrong? Also, how exactly is that day is different from any other? But seriously. Code that is visible is code that can be wrong. No surprise there. But did you know that [...]

MAKE Magazine - Catena clock tells time with a chain - If there's one thing I can't get enough of, it is funny ways to tell time, and this catena wall clock definitely fits the bill. Instead of rotating a set of hands, or lighting a digital display, this clock works by slowly turning a chain that has a [...]

TYWKIWDBI - If you have Blue Cross, but prefer a "public option" - Shared by fierceflawless yes yes yes! Blue Cross has apparently been sending out postage-prepaid postcards to its members. The postcards are addressed to senators, and the preprinted text asks the senator to oppose the public option. One enterpri[...]

Google Blogoscoped - Go! vs Go - Francis McCabe writes: I have been working on a programming language, also called Go, for the last 10 years. There have been papers published on this and I have a book. I would appreciate it if google changed the name of this language; as I do not[...]

Google Operating System - Why It's a Bad Idea to Send Huge Files by Email - Gmail has increased the maximum attachment size to 25 MB in June, but some people want to send larger files. Daniel wrote a thoughtful comment that explains why it's a bad idea to send huge files by email: People who demand large message size limits[...]

Bad Astronomy - Want a planet? You might want to avoid lithium - A science joke: A woman is out walking and sees a kid on his hands and knees looking at the sidewalk. She asks the boy what he's doing, and he says, "Looking for a quarter I lost." She asks him where he lost it, and he points across the st[...]

tithonium @ 2009-11-08T19:38:00

2009-11-09T03:47:35Z

From the article "Helpful Hints for Dealing with Martian", in the March 2005 issue of Alien Invasion Quarterly:

If, say at a party or something, I have something you want - some bit of kitsch or whatever - which is obviously of little value to me, and I tell you to make me an offer.. seriously, just make an offer. If it really is of no value to me, odds are the offer alone will be an adequate price. I just want to see what kind of offer you'll make. Mind you, you should be serious and sincere in your offer, 'cause I might accept it. But, despite intentions to the contrary, I tend to be at least somewhat reasonable in what I expect someone to give for something I don't care about. In the worst case, I'll tell you your offer is boring and make you come up with something better.

Twitter posts from 01 November to 07 November

2009-11-08T08:00:15Z

From my Twitter stream:

sun 02:53am	@dreamingcrow ?q
sun 02:53am	Still just a bit drunk
sun 02:54am	Staying up until i decide i'm sober enough to sleep.
sun 08:26am	So glad I don't get hangovers. 'cause dealing with that on top of this not-enough-sleep crap would /really/ suck.
sun 09:03am	@beaq yes, like that. Poor!
mon 07:17am	Auto wakeup at 9am is annoying. Autowake at 8am is bad. Autowake at 7am REALLY SUCKS. Staying in bed out of protest.
mon 12:11pm	Windows 7 Review-In-Progress. 1) The packaging is nicer than Vista.
mon 12:12pm	2) Still can't install 64-bit version on Mac Pro. Not gonna bother rebuilding the dvd to make it so I can.
mon 12:12pm	3) Prettier than Vista. Or XP, even.
mon 12:13pm	4) Mega-bonus points: It asks for the product number AFTER SUCCESSFUL INSTALL, not at the start. Good when install fails a lot.
mon 12:13pm	5) Install only failed one. Popped the other drives out and it was better. We'll see if it still boots with they're back.
mon 12:38pm	6) Installed boot camp drivers. Isn't booting correctly.
mon 12:41pm	@maggim Huh. I just missed mine. My 5k was about not having to reenter the product number over and over again. ::(
mon 12:52pm	7) Booting works without the DVD in the drive. ::/ Sounds are same as vista, which is several negative points.
mon 12:52pm	8) Big points: It can read HFS+. I don't have to boot back to mac to get to the files I saved off the partition.
mon 12:54pm	9) Eeexcept my home directory appears blank. And the files I need are in a folder on my desktop. Fail!
mon 12:58pm	@darkmane I booted the computer. Also, I installed the boot camp addons from the snow leopard disk, that likely helped a lot.
mon 01:02pm	@tedder42 They're the same as the vista sounds. At least the boot and login sounds are.
mon 07:40pm	@dreamingcrow /everybody/ is there just to amuse me.. It's when I'm /not/ amused that things get dangerous.
mon 07:43pm	@dreamingcrow You disagree?
mon 07:44pm	Went to the dentist this afternoon for a cleaning. As a result, going in again thursday to have a crown re-done. Yay (tm).
mon 07:44pm	At least it'll be free. He decided it isn't right, so he's gonna re-do it at his expense. I love my dentist.
mon 07:47pm	The funny thing is that.. /he/'s the one it bothers. I noticed it was imperfect from the start, but it doesn't bother me. shrug
mon 07:47pm	I totally understand perfectionism tho, so I'm certainly not going to argue with him.
mon 07:48pm	Let that be a lesson to you kids: Never argue with the guy offering you a giant tank of nitrous. Er, I mean free dental care. cough
mon 07:49pm	@dreamingcrow But you're an 'everybody'.
mon 07:56pm	@dianthus you see my point. how're you feeling, btw?
mon 08:09pm	Reinstalling Win7 already. Tried to system restore to before I installed the ATI drivers. They are definitely what's breaking Fallout3.
mon 08:09pm	System restore failed. "Reinstall!" didn't work. So, doing it the usual way.
mon 08:10pm	It's ... nice? that MS finally recognizes that reinstalling is a common, viable solution to problems with windows, and builds it is.
mon 08:24pm	@tedder42 no.
mon 09:08pm	@tedder42 I've seen it mentioned.
tue 09:17am	Oh, that is COMPLETELY awesome. Let me guess, the warranty on my 23" LCD /just/ ran out. It's got lines running vertically at 1" intervals.
tue 09:18am	Only where there's color, never where there's grey. Purple, red, yellow, repeat.
tue 09:19am	Whew. Power cycling the monitor fixed it. Wonder WTF that was about.
tue 09:19am	@FallenPegasus Yes, damnit!
tue 12:11pm	Thank you for existing, downforeveryoneorjustme.com.
tue 01:26pm	It's really quite annoying. Both prototypejs.org and api.rubyonrails.org are unresponsive. I'm forced to read source code! ohs no.
tue 05:54pm	My copy of Fallout 3, plus the nice edition of the everything-guide for it, is now up for grabs if anybody wants it.
tue 05:55pm	@tereshkova2001 now he just has to decide what that reason is?
tue 06:06pm	Twitter and Dropbox are taunting me with their not-in-Seattle job openings.
tue 07:29pm	Okay... It's not just fallout that fails. Supreme commander has the same problem. Main video card shuts down and computer locks up.
tue 07:29pm	I ponder swapping my video cards.
tue 07:44pm	Looks like I'll have to deprecate the x1900 to swap them. But it was filthy, maybe just overheating?
tue 07:58pm	I suppose if I drove out to Fry's tonight they would not have a Radeon HD 3800...
tue 07:59pm	Anybody wanna guess as to whether they could even identify a mac compatible videocard?
tue 08:08pm	Heading to frys.
tue 08:38pm	Well, at least they know they're useless. They've got no video card for mac.
tue 09:30pm	It didn't occur to me until after I got home to ask if they had any EFI-compatible video cards. Wanna bet they'd've said yes?
wed 10:36am	Looking at election results... R71 winning by fewer votes than DIDN'T VOTE on 1033.
wed 12:40pm	@maggim I'm guessing that's what I was just behind on 405. If so, yes, yum.
wed 12:43pm	@GeekGirlsRule Yes?
thu 08:47am	@daskeyboard Ouch. That's gotta hurt.
thu 09:36am	Graphing voting groups in the US Senate, go watch: http://bit.ly/3dqXl9
thu 01:34pm	At dentist for a recrowning. This is not the proper path to god-emperor.
thu 03:10pm	@mcmoots you are the funniest thing ever. (note: I have a nitrous tank attached to me face.) <3
thu 03:12pm	I like the future: I can tweet from the dentists chair, under influence of nitrous.
thu 11:39pm	Sweet zombie Jesus! The rain just started POUNDING down.
thu 11:44pm	And just like that it stops. And L slept thru it all.
thu 11:46pm	$150 for a 23" from woot? Arc needs two more, and I've been buying $600 Dells... Can I afford $300 now?
thu 11:46pm	@arjache only one big thunder. No lightning have I noticed.
thu 11:50pm	Dogs seem unperturbed. Did not wake their momma. I hope the power stays on.
thu 11:51pm	Decided: If still available in morning, will buy.
thu 11:52pm	Ok, NOW I see lightning. Bright enough to be right outside the door, but at least two sound-seconds away.
thu 11:59pm	Well, I need to read the specs first, I suppose. But not on the phone. Sleep for now. Worst seems to have passed for the moment.
fri 09:15am	The 20" I bought during wootoff arrived this morning. Sadly, the 23"'s specs are lacking, so no buy.
fri 05:40pm	Another reason I need a new job: they don't mail checks until the 5th. Joint account just overdrew on Amex autopayment.
fri 05:41pm	They mail the checks on the 5th, means I freqeuently don't HAVE it until the 9th or so due to weekends.
fri 05:58pm	@westseattleblog was definitely sleet up here.
sat 01:17am	@HollyQueen correct. Quite sucky even when paid on the first.
sat 01:22am	Excellent game of BSG tonight. Planning another in a couple weeks, and then the mega 12-14 player adaptation.
sat 02:47pm	Idea: memory wire spoons. Bend to the shape you need, flattens in the wash for storage.
sat 07:42pm	@dianthus that's the tricky part. I need to see how hot it gets during the dry cycle.

Shared Posts from 04 November to 06 November

2009-11-08T08:00:09Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

Bad Astronomy - Mars is sublime - Mars is weird. It's small, and cold, and has a thin atmosphere that's almost entirely carbon dioxide, and what isn't CO2 is nitrogen and, bizarrely, argon. So you expect to see weird landscapes. But even so, Mars has the potential to be really, real[...]

Boing Boing - DMCA takedown shirt - We'll never know what was originally intended for this Techdirt tee, but we can see the aftermath of the takedown notice it attracted! DMCA Takedown T-shirt (Thanks, Dennis!)

Lazyweb, now with extra hardware

2009-11-06T18:57:38Z

I really need to get around to building my own hotbits machine. My servers don't get enough action to generate enough entropy. I've just written a little script that will fetch random bytes from the internet and pump them into the entropy system to help beef things up, but I feel bad draining public randomness resources like that.

Voice Post

2009-11-04T20:20:39Z

Well, that's embarassing.

2009-11-04T17:25:50Z

After pulling both video cards, cleaning the heat sinks, and reinstalling them, I can play both Supreme Commander and Fallout 3 without anything failing. As demonstrated by my 1:30am bedtime on a work night. ::/

Sooo, yeah.

Tho I still need to upgrade the 1900 some day.

tithonium @ 2009-11-03T21:42:00

2009-11-04T05:42:58Z

1) Fallout3 still fails on the new Nekkar (now a Win7 system), even without installing ATI's driverrs.
2) Supreme Commander ALSO fails, in exactly the same way.

So. Not fallout specific. I begin to wonder if it's the card.
The ATI Radeon X1900 is a dual-width card sitting in slot 1. I've got an HD 2600 sitting in slot 4. I won't put the 1900 anywhere else, because it's dual width and it would have to be in 2 or 3 and could only run at 4x (currently it's at 16x and the 2600 is at 8x). So, what I'm thinking I might do is replace the 1900 altogether, keep the 2600 as the secondary card, and put something newer and nicer in slot 1 to be primary.

Apple's online store only sells video cards for Early 2008 or newer Mac Pros. Arc is an Early 2007 (the first 8-core model, introduced Apr 2007, ended Jan 2008). So, I can't tell if they would work with Arc (they specify compatibility by model and memory speed, and all want faster than Arc's got). So, I can't buy one from them.

Went to Fry's, to see what they had. They've got lots of things, but they sell no video cards for Macs. I stupidly neglected to ask what they have that supports EFI, since that's what it needs to work in a mac, and I suspect if it doesn't have a big flashing sign saying "MADE FOR MAC" they wouldn't realize it's mac-compatible.

By the time I was done there it was too late to go to the apple store in the mall. Maybe I'll go tomorrow or something, see what they suggest.

In the mean time, I've cleaned out the heat sinks on both video cards, and will experiment to see if maybe that helps the problem any. I am not hopeful.

Microservers

2009-11-03T17:44:41Z

So, I'm shopping for a microserver. I need a decent amount of power, as it's going to be a dedicated rails+mysql box (I might change db backends eventually, but not right now. frontend will be either apache or nginx, I haven't decided), but not a /huge/ amount. I'm planning to run a minimal Ubuntu install on it, and again, it'll just be web server + rails + db server + a few shells, and the website isn't likely to be handling more than a dozen simultaneous users in the foreseeable future. (users. not requests.)

I have a hardware raid array I want to use for the main system drive. It fits into a 3.5" drive bay slot, and I'd /really/ prefer it be externally accessible, so I don't have to open the case if a drive fails (this is not absolutely required, but very strongly preferred). The system must support SATA internally.

I want something with multiple processor cores. Multiple procs is fine, tho that's out of style these days. Two is fine, I don't need much more. I just want more than one.

Very important: I said /micro/ server. I want something small and portable. Something I can shut down, pull the cords, stuff in a bag, and take with me. It'll spend 99.2% of its time in my basement, but I don't want a giant hassle for the three days a year it goes out.

It should have at least one USB port. It should have a VGA or DVI port, preferably, or /some/ video port that I can connect to a standard VGA monitor thru some set of adapters which do not cost a lot of money.

Also important: I'm paying for this out of pocket then getting reimbursed from a limited budget. So, I'm looking for /cheap/ but good. I'd prefer the entire thing, with all requisite add-ons to get it going (not counting the system drive(s), since I already bought those) will stay under $300. I'm willing to go to 4 without crying too much. More than that and I'm gonna be looking for ways to strip it down further.

I'd originally been excited about the Shuttle X27D, until I realized it only has a 2.5" bay. Disappointing. But, that's the sort of form factor that would be ideal.
My stack of DECtops are, sadly, woefully underpowered and inadequate to the task. (Still looking for people to house them for me, tho. Offsite servers are a nice thing to have.)

So, what I'm looking for here is some advice: What do I buy, from whom?

I'd prefer something that comes with ram and cpu, but 'complete system's tend to run outrageously expensive for no good reason, so I'm okay with buying a barebones system and adding the cpu/ram to that. But, I'll also need advice on cpu, as I haven't paid attention to the ever deepening pile of marketing crap surrounding the processor market for at least five years.

So, if you recommend a shuttle, which one, and where do you think I should buy it? And, since a lot of them support several different CPUs these days, which one do I get?
Do you recommend something other than shuttle? They're the only name I know in this niche, tho I know there /exist/ others, so recommendations are welcome. Same questions hold.

tithonium @ 2009-11-02T10:34:00

2009-11-02T18:43:11Z

So, I bought Arcturus in October '07. The issued a refresh of the hardware a week or two later, as I recall, and the Mid 2006 models are listed as having the same processor options as Arcturus, which implies Arc is a mid06 series. Which Apple has announced they will explicitly NOT be supporting for win7 bootcamp when they release support for it later this year.

Awesome.

It's a $5000 computer, two years old today, and it's already obsolete crap in the eyes of the manufacturer. That makes me feel good about my purchase. An EFI firmware update would /really/ kill you?

I've been pondering a wipe-and-reinstall of the OSX partition for a while. Two years is a lot of cruft. I wonder how much I could get selling it to put towards a new one. Probably not enough to make it a viable option for at least another 6 months or so. On the other hand, I just went and looked, and the best CPUs you can get are /slower/ than what I've got. Newer, sure, but slower, and $2600 extra! Oy. I understand why Psystar's still in business.

Meanwhile, I'm installing the 32bit version of win7. Yay.

Twitter posts from 25 October to 31 October

2009-11-01T07:00:13Z

From my Twitter stream:

sun 05:21pm	Sitting alone in the hotel restaurant, having lunch. Registration is over. Food, then homeward, unless something better comes up.
sun 05:29pm	Sorry I've been pretty much write-only since Wednesday. When I haven't been busy, I've been exhausted.
mon 01:58pm	RT @dresdencodak: AR system that lets you see through walls: http://bit.ly/4oMiw1
mon 03:56pm	Cube laws are a pain in the ass. You can't really build a proper dirigible that'll fly indoors.
mon 03:56pm	Even filling it with vacuum instead of H2 will only gain you 89 grams or so per kilolitre.
mon 08:56pm	Disappointed in my inability to read: the Shuttle X27D doesn't have an external 3.5" bay. Was SO close to buying one.
mon 09:46pm	Just saw an ad for The Box. My first question would be "Do I get $1M /every/ time I push the button? Can I rig up a button-pushing device?"
mon 10:40pm	Hail pounding Nerdvana right now.
tue 12:23pm	So, with all these usb monitors coming out, has anybody put out a vga to usb adapter?
tue 12:31pm	@tedder42 Yeah. It's just hard to find very small vga lcd monitors.
tue 01:37pm	I bought an 8gb flash drive for $20 yesterday. Overnight, woot had a 16gb for the same price. Stupid sleep.
tue 01:46pm	@gfish I wonder if I could get them to build me a walking table. I really just want something that will go where it's pushed, then stand.
tue 11:14pm	@tedder42 servers and portability. Want to be able to move it between machines and take it elsewhere.
tue 11:16pm	@tedder42 I agree on the desk. Arcturus has two 23"s, a 17, and a 15. Eventually to be 4x23.
wed 09:38am	Vista install cd doesn't even see Seginus as a valid drive to recover. Fuck it, Wiping XP and Vista, reinstalling Vista on Nekkar.
wed 09:40am	No, better idea. Leave the XP partition alone, wipe and reinstall vista, and get win7 asap. XP doesn't boot either, but.
wed 09:43am	"unable to find a system volume that meets criteria for installation", but no indication of what it doesn't like about it. Fucking windows.
wed 09:44am	@tedder42 Except I don't have a copy right now, and I need a windows box, right now.
wed 10:10am	@tedder42 I neither want to download it illegally nor pay retail price for it.
wed 10:46am	@tedder42 I have a solution to the retail thing, but it isn't immediate. ::)
wed 03:28pm	Holy crapmonkeys! I just found three cmbus adapters WITH cables at repc!
wed 04:37pm	Ended up getting 3 cmbus adapters for $4 each, plus a netgear network hard drive for $10. Latter probly broken, but worth a shot.
wed 04:57pm	Status of the ND520: the cpu fan was banging around loose. Put it back on. Device turns on, lights blink, it does not grab an IP.
wed 04:57pm	@tedder42 Console Management Bus. Video plus keyboard plus mouse in a tiny little connector for chaining servers together.
wed 04:58pm	@tedder42 Adapters come up on ebay once in a while for $20-$100 each.
wed 04:58pm	@tedder42 I've got a huge pile of servers that use it, but only three adapters. Well, 6 now.
wed 04:59pm	@tedder42 Sorry, 'Cluster' management bus, I think it is.
wed 05:06pm	@tedder42 Nobody uses it anymore, as far as I can tell, and it's impossible to find anywhere. Unless you hoard antiques, like me.
wed 05:11pm	Whee, the network drive is booted!
wed 05:14pm	And I can read and (sorta) write it. SMB only is a pita, tho, so I'll probably pull the drive and put a real linux on it.
thu 11:29am	Apparently the reason I couldn't install WinXP or WinV has to do with the MBR being screwed up. Probly why they wouldn't boot, too.
thu 11:33am	Pity I already reformatted the partitions several times trying to fix it. Reinstalling XP now. Yay.
thu 11:33am	I've decided to only have one windows system on Arcturus from now on. Seginus will become something else. Maybe linux.
thu 11:34am	I'm taking suggestions for OSes to put on Muprhid and Venabulum.
thu 11:52am	Ahem. 'Muphrid'. Spelling fail for me.
thu 11:53am	@scottru blink
thu 11:55am	@scottru First off, why are you using the name of a drink invented for /me/? Second, so, basically, it's a /username/. WTF.
thu 11:56am	@scottru I'm amused that one of its suggestions for me is "Marty's Enduring Fame". I kid you not.
thu 01:26pm	Ok. Wasted my entire morning with Windows. XP will install just fine now, but won't boot. Vista, oddly, won't boot to finish install.
thu 01:27pm	Oddly, because previously vista has installed on this machine just fine, no headaches. Oh well.
thu 03:29pm	@xopherg yeah, yeah, I know I didn't originate the phrase. But go to the Roosevelt Ale House and order one.
thu 04:51pm	Huh. So, apparently liquor store #101 (sodo, 4th ave) is closed? Still shows up on the website, tho.
thu 04:53pm	@perisaccadic I guess that makes nano the new beetle? I'll take mine in purple.
thu 10:17pm	@palousa oh, cool. Thanks!
thu 10:19pm	We have reached the never-throwing-another-party time of party prep.
fri 09:40am	http://bit.ly/2wOe0j
fri 09:44am	Things I need to do today: party preparations, including dishes, hauling stuff upstairs, some shopping.
fri 09:45am	Things I'd rather do today: Buy a few hard drives, install linux on them, set up new steamcon server and a network drive.
fri 12:02pm	@scottru does that mean you're coming to mine tomorrow? Also, cleanig for them is NOT fun.
fri 01:52pm	Linux installs work better without a corrupted iso.
fri 01:54pm	@steamcon I'm still waiting to see the picture of me sitting at the reg desk next to Domo. ::)
fri 01:55pm	@vixy I'd be SOOOOOO screwed.
fri 02:50pm	The Karmic installer isn't liking the packages file. I give up. Will try a different iso later.
fri 09:59pm	I've successfully put together a preseed that will autoinstall ubuntu how I want it. Now I just have to install less stuff...
fri 10:02pm	(I'm trying to get it to fit in 500mb. I don't expect to succeed.)
fri 10:07pm	@dianthus your timing kinda sucks.
fri 10:08pm	Holy crap, I think it might've worked!
fri 10:13pm	Eh, sorta worked. It boots, but the root disk is fullfullfull. Will do it again with a 2gb root part. sigh.
sat 10:04am	OMW to Mill Creek to get the cake...
sat 01:10pm	Tempted to ask the Hutchinson supporters in the Junction if they got there by ferry.
sat 01:10pm	@vixy wait and see
sat 01:16pm	@gfish awesome
sat 05:26pm	@Jenk3 ditto zombie flux. I still need to grab a copy of Martian.
sat 05:28pm	First guests have arrived (from out of town). Am showered, not less than 2.5hr before party. Still need to do makeup tho.

Shared Posts from 21 October to 28 October

2009-11-01T07:00:09Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

Friendly Atheist by @hemantmehta - Which Religion Should I Follow? - This flowchart explains all: Sadly, I'm right where I should be. Just a few hundred thousand dollars more and I'm outta here. (via Holy Taco -- Thanks to Kaleena for the link!)

not martha - Meat Hand - I made something gruesome and delicious. No, really, it was good. This is meatloaf. Meatloaf with cheese on top. And some ketchup. The nails are made of onion. The wrist bones are onion too. Where are you going? This is how I made it: Since [...]

Papier mache gargoyle - You need to exaggerate life's strangeness only a small amount to remember how strange it actually is. - "You need to exaggerate life's strangeness only a small amount to remember how strange it actually is." Added by GrendelFish (#42)

Papier mache gargoyle - Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you're thinking before you've had a chance to think about it. - "Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you're thinking before you've had a chance to think about it." Added by GrendelFish (#42)

Pundit Kitchen: Lol News and Lol Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and more - TOLERANCE - TOLERANCE Be nice to that weird kid in school.  One day he might become famous and have unlimited access to high explosives, radioactive materials, and a security clearance second only to God. (Albert Einstein) Tolerance is big with peopl[...]

Celebrity Pictures, Lol Celebs and Funny Actor and Actress Photos - ROFLrazzi - Breaking news… - Breaking news… The news is broken. That is all. (Jon Stewart) And god knows that you've been trying to fix it. (Via Pundit Kitchen) Picture by: dunno source Caption by: black_reaver via Our LOL Builder » Recaption This! » Vie[...]

tithonium @ 2009-10-29T13:00:00

2009-10-29T20:01:31Z

I'm having a salad. 480 calories. 300 of them from the bleu cheese dressing.

tithonium @ 2009-10-26T09:43:00

2009-10-26T16:43:54Z

Anybody wanna build me a little table with a single spherical wheel on the bottom, which self-balances like a segway, but in two dimensions? I'm thinking about 4' tall, about 10" to a side.

Twitter posts from 18 October to 24 October

2009-10-25T07:00:11Z

From my Twitter stream:

sun 04:08am	@julzerator ::(
sun 11:51am	Heading to SouthCenter. Where's the best place to find a nice, hard case for my sunglasses?
sun 12:32pm	@tereshkova2001 I believe it's spelled 'sqvirrel'.
sun 12:33pm	Just dropped $117 on fabric for a room we aren't even decorating this year.
sun 12:34pm	Granted, yesterday was $400+ for the room we /are/ decorating. So.
sun 01:17pm	Pity murder isn't a good way to get property deeds anymore. The sound view coming west on Holly is worth killing for.
sun 02:46pm	Ok. New outlets and light switch, as well as new covers, installed in the harem pit. They look very good. I hate doing electrical.
sun 02:47pm	Apart from draperies and curtains, and putting the pillows back, the harem pit remodel is complete. So, about 70%, really.
sun 05:00pm	Why are the bad guys always so lazy? "Screw him, he'll freeze to death."?? NO! If I want you dead, I'm not stopping until I have proof!
sun 05:01pm	When I'm an evil mastermind, I will have a professional medical examiner on staff, and you aren't dead until he's finished the autopsy.
sun 05:09pm	Or her, of course, tho I've got to admit I've got Waldo Butters in mind.
mon 09:00am	RT @bradfitz: RT @blaine We are a hateful species: http://bit.ly/1gkQ3w
mon 06:53pm	@wsdot I'm not even looking at the poll, but I'll bet most people say they merge early, and they LIE.
tue 03:26pm	Having trouble with focus again. Very bad, since I have lots of work stuff to do AND the checkin system for steamcon.
tue 03:27pm	IOW, I think I picked the wrong month to stop sniffing glue. (By which I mean, to start a diet.)
tue 08:58pm	Ok. I was MEHing at 2012. But I just saw an ad that changed my mind. I do love me some disaster porn, and if I can just ignore the plot...
wed 11:59pm	I've spent the last several hours writing a perl script that reads a rails log file and generates a ruby script to correct the database.
thu 08:56am	I find something vaguely amusing about being able to answer the phone "Still the wrong number, ma'am."
thu 09:00am	@FallenPegasus Sweet Zombie Jesus, that is the WORST sign-up UI. Auto-complete interests with a limited set and it resets it as you type? H8
thu 09:50am	Feeling very anxious. Probably has a lot to do with trying to figure out the insane data structures our app is using.
thu 09:50am	@GeekGirlsRule Hm. Downside to not being their mom: nobody will come take them away if you start hitting them.
thu 10:35am	.5 of 1.5 things to do for work today done.
thu 11:01am	@GeekGirlsRule oh CRAP that's right, it's thursday. Shit, even LESS time to have my panic attacks!
thu 02:16pm	RT @GeekGirlsRule: This is awesome: http://bit.ly/w1WC6
thu 03:39pm	This is the point where I start swearing loudly, and also panicking.
thu 04:50pm	Data recovery complete. Now the last bit if new development before I collapse and die.
thu 04:50pm	...And then have to drag myself to seatac first thing in the morning. Ugh.
fri 01:40am	I think I'm done. I'm going to bed. Alarm will be going off in... 6 hours or so. Fuck.
fri 11:07am	Putting out fires. Starting new ones. Lather, rinse, repeat.
fri 12:33pm	Holy crapmonkeys, batman. Zoooooooooo!!
fri 07:06pm	Reg is closed. Pete's doing last minute checkins. Very very tired. Pondering next steps.
fri 07:44pm	Spent all day standing. Left calf starts cramping as I walk to the car.
sat 07:59am	@dianthus work? On a Saturday? Tsk.
sat 08:00am	Awake. Must now get ready for more registation.
sat 11:20am	New registrations are cut off. Whee. #steamcon
sat 02:39pm	Taking a break for lunch. I wonder what's happening with the unclaimed teaparty tickets...
sat 02:40pm	@TNgirlinWA we expect to have a Very small number of sunday-only tomorrow.
sat 02:52pm	@FallenPegasus wish I had the money to burn buying the entire Foglio table. Will have to settle for the website. Ah well. #steamcon
sat 04:12pm	@gabrielcain I'm in ops. Say hi

Shared Posts from 19 October to 21 October

2009-10-22T07:00:08Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) - Mini gets a server-style upgrade - Filed under: Xserve, Apple, Mac mini, Mac OS X Server Apple has given the mini a bit of a bump this morning, including a mini without an optical drive, twice the storage and of course a copy of OS X Server. It is meant to be a solution for those sm[...]

The Food Section - Food News, Recipes, and More - Jelly Beans That Trick and Treat - The Jelly Belly Candy Company has launched a new line of jelly beans that are particularly suited to the upcoming Halloween holiday. The candies -- branded BeanBoozled -- mix together sweet and disgustingly flavored jelly beans that look exactly the[...]

CHS Capitol Hill Seattle capitolhillseattle.com - Seattle PostGlobe - Top News: McGinn says he'll uphold tunnel agreement - Shared by Marty Wow. He just got my vote. In a sudden shift in the final days of Seattle's mayoral election, Michael McGinn, who has largely been identified with his opposition to the plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel, said he [...]

Watchismo Times - A reliquary of obscure timepieces from bygone eras as well as the cutting-edge designs of today - Art experts think they may have found the world's oldest painting to feature an image of a watch. - The portrait was painted in around 1560 Art experts think they may have found the world's oldest painting to feature an image of a watch.The Science Museum is investigating the 450-year-old portrait, thought to be of Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Flor[...]

Pundit Kitchen: Lol News and Lol Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and more - is anyone really surprised - is anyone really surprised that it's written in crayon? (Teabaggers) I think it was written by her. Picture by: Superkermit Caption by: lyds1012 via Our LOL Builder » Recaption This! » View All Captions

EFF.org Updates - Cook County Sheriff Loses Craigslist "Erotic Services" Ads Case - Yesterday, a federal court tossed a lawsuit against craigslist over erotic advertisements. In March, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart alleged that craigslist was liable for the illegal ads posted by its users in its "erotic services" (now "adult serv[...]

tithonium @ 2009-10-20T11:07:00

2009-10-20T18:07:50Z

I am advantaged in this diet thing in that I a) work from home and b) don't mind eating the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over [...] and over. Campbell's Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder, one can, 387 calories. A couple tablespoons of chicken bouillon powder, for that extra chickeny goodness, 43 calories. And it's pretty filling. If I want more, and I usually do, I can add into it a can of corn, 225 calories. All together, 655, which I can eat three times a day and still have a good margin on my daily budget. I have, in fact, been eating it twice a day for over a week now, and less frequently before I started doing it intentionally. Generally breakfast and lunch, then something else for dinner, since I usually eat that with loree. However, I do worry about getting bored with it. So, sometimes I skip the extra corn and have something else. I ordered a case of rice cakes from Amazon Fresh. They're relatively cheap in terms of calories, and moderately bulky. Yesterday for lunch I had a bowl of the soup and a package of the rice cakes (half a bag, 7 cakes), and it comes out nearly the same as the extra-corn version (slightly higher, 675). However, these are the 'lightly salted' brown-rice whole grain cakes. Meaning they're INCREDIBLY BLAND. Corn cakes are, I've realized, so much better (those're what I usually get), but they're higher calorie. They're also only salted on one side, apparently, so if I don't turn it right side up, it's even MORE bland. However, with today's breakfast, I have found a solution: Dip them in the soup. I hate to say it, but OMG is that good.

Shared Posts from 19 October

2009-10-20T07:00:10Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

Hack a Day - Reverse geocache puzzle - [Mikal] wanted to create an awesome electronic wedding gift for his friend who was moving to France. After experimenting with a few things, he settled on creating a puzzle box that would only open in a certain location. Since his friend introduced hi[...]

Shared Posts from 14 October to 16 October

2009-10-18T07:00:20Z

Items shared from Google Reader:

EFF.org Updates - Court Rules That Phones Ringing in Public Don't Infringe Copyright - As we reported in June, ASCAP believes that when your cell phone's musical ringtone sounds in a public place, you're infringing copyright. A federal court yesterday firmly rejected that argument, ruling that "when a ringtone plays on a cellular [...]

From themartian's contacts - spiky - smellsofbikes posted a photo: So here's the deal. My workplace is right beside a railroad. I was walking across the railroad to the japanese restaurant on the other side and picked up a discarded spike from the roadway. "Cool", I though[...]

PolitiFact.com statements - Democratic National Committee: "Only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore." - The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Democrats claim only 20 percent of Americans call themselves Republicans In a recent round of partisan fighting, Democrats made a claim that piqued our curiosity: that only 20 percent of Americans identify the[...]

Seattlest - Around the Sound: The Week in News - "Orca Sighting" by jaycoxfilm , from our Flickr pool The Manager of the Matador in Ballard was stabbed by a patron Saturday night. A hazmat team was brought into the Hotel Andra on Sunday when a housekeeper accidentally knocked over a guest's [...]

Boing Boing - The Nerdy Dozens - I'm posting geek "yo momma" jokes to my Twitter feed, and people who think that sort of nonsense is amusing have been replying with even funnier ones that I'm retweeting in an infinite circle of endless insult lulz. Here are a few selections. Yo mom[...]

Boing Boing - Telcos and Hollywood ask Canadian govt for right to secretly install spyware, listen in on your network connection -- ACT NOW! - Michael Geist sez, C-27 is the Canadian anti-spam bill that comes out of committee on Monday. The opposition Liberals have proposed amendments which appear to have been drafted by copyright and telecom lobbyists. They would allow for surreptitious [...]

Schneier on Security - The Commercial Speech Arms Race - A few years ago, a company began to sell a liquid with identification codes suspended in it. The idea was that you would paint it on your stuff as proof of ownership. I commented that I would paint it on someone else's stuff, then call the police. I[...]

TYWKIWDBI - Columbus Day - Via

Twitter posts from 11 October to 17 October

2009-10-18T07:00:18Z

From my Twitter stream:

sun 11:57am	SG:U... writing is very bad at times. I hold out hope, but the characatures of people are annoying.
sun 12:49pm	SNL: ... WTF? /This/ is what's supposed to be funny these days?
sun 10:53pm	@libraryraven I think I have two left. Email me, can do it tomorrow.
sun 11:48pm	@ladyaraia email or dm to remind me. Already in bed, sleep soon, won't remember.
mon 06:29pm	Vanth's clock seems to be having problems.
mon 06:29pm	It was reading as just before noon. I reset it, and it's ticking about 1 second per ten.
mon 06:57pm	The Confectionery finally has Jelly Babies in stock. And I don't like them as much as I'd hoped. ::(
tue 01:43pm	TV sucks. Live tv really sucks. Live daytime tv really /really/ sucks. (Live meaning realtime, non-recorded, no commercial-skip)
tue 09:19pm	@jfew you've got my vote.
wed 09:18am	@dreamingcrow I've been in one for ten years and I can tell you that's not true! cry
wed 09:25am	This: http://bit.ly/HzIOb
wed 09:27am	@dreamingcrow Yes, I am.
wed 09:28am	@HollyQueen Ok, that's fair.
wed 09:43am	@hollyking I hardly leave the house these days. They're the only thing keeping me sane.
wed 09:44am	@hollyking how're you liking the mytouch? I've been pondering one, but would probably have to add it as a second line.
wed 10:10am	@tedder42 I declare it a Kansas thing to not want to.
wed 11:02am	So, I started a diet yesterday. Current goal is to drop a bit over a stone by new years.
wed 11:03am	So, if I bite your head off between now and then, it's just because I'm hungry.
wed 12:08pm	http://bit.ly/2s43rE
wed 12:39pm	@dianthus Yeah. I don't think I'll manage to drop 5 stone (which would put me back to college), but 1 is a good start, and maybe 2 or 3?
wed 12:40pm	(Yes, I'm having fun measuring things in stones.) (and yes, stones is the correct plural when describing the units.)
thu 09:09am	@maggim I'm wearing my grey long-sleeve alfani, instead of the blue. Probably not the biggest hurdle for my morning.
thu 09:51am	@maggim I can neither confirm nor deny in a public forum. But thank you. ::)
thu 11:22am	Another secret meeting went well.expecting longer followup secret meeting. Trying to be less hopeful than last time.
thu 11:25am	I'm really liking my new shoes.
fri 09:52am	New spam subject: "Have invite to google?". Oy.
fri 11:37am	http://bit.ly/4JloB
fri 11:41am	I particularly like the bit around 2:00, talking about open-plan offices. Even /I/ didn't think the number was /that/ high.
fri 01:42pm	@darkmane subject line for pharm spam mail.
fri 03:19pm	I need to stop trying to translate the pretty things in my head to the real world. I suck at, in this case, accent painting.
fri 04:38pm	iTunes is apparently assigning a disc's average rating implicitly to tracks, ruining rating-based playlists. How can I make it stop?
fri 04:41pm	oh HO. Apparently some of the albums involved got rated. Problem with using other people's metadata.
fri 04:42pm	I wonder if there's a good way to clear all album ratings.
fri 06:01pm	Son of a whore! iTunes just ate nearly all of my playlists. They just went Poof when I deleted a single empty playlist.
fri 06:10pm	No files deleted, but it forgot about all iphone apps, all ipod games, 90% of my playlists, smart or otherwise...
fri 06:27pm	Can't make smart playlists based on the podcasts playlist, because it doesn't recognize that it EXISTS. Fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK.
fri 08:19pm	Ok. I have managed to recreate all the important playlists, including several dozen under the 'books' group. Left out stuff I don't use.
fri 08:20pm	And now, to make sure that directory gets backed up daily from now on (I'd moved the library to another drive, and hasn't set it to backup)
fri 08:20pm	Not that a backup would have helped /that/ much. There were enough unrecoverable metadata changes that I had to fix it in place.
sat 01:31am	Just discovered that my iPhone deleted my diet apps during the sync. Thank you iTunes.. Three days of data to reconstruct to tomorrow. Grr.
sat 02:20pm	Data recovered andor rememered. Sunroom painting finished, curtain rods obtained. Soon, tmobile and fabric stores.
sat 03:09pm	Flipped off anti-71 guy at SouthCenter. How dare he smile and wave in response!
sat 06:31pm	@westseattleblog most seattlites think so.
sat 09:29pm	SG:U... Still hoping, waiting. Also: The ship is smarter than any of them. Sundive = free power.

Tumblr posts from 16 October

2009-10-17T07:00:07Z

From my Tumblog:

16 October 11:36am

Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us - TED

“If you have to work in an open-plan office like this, your productivity is greatly reduced. And whatever number you’re thinking of, it probably isn’t as bad as this: you are one-third as productive in open-plan offices as in quiet rooms.” (2:00 in)

tithonium @ 2009-10-16T12:45:00

2009-10-16T19:45:09Z

As I mentioned, I forgot to weigh yesterday. Remembered this morning. 264.4.

Lose It! (which only knows 267 and 264 as the values) says "I have lost 3 pounds so far!". Um, yeah. I'm very interested to see what it says tomorrow. "You went back up two pounds, you suck, loser!" ::P

True Weight uses the moving average, and says my 'true' weight is now 266.1, or .7 less than two days ago. That seems fairly reasonable if my goal is 1.5/wk.
The graph is still not very exciting tho.

Huh.

2009-10-16T16:28:01Z

I guess it's a good thing my email address is in my whitelist. My filter thinks it's a high-probability spam marker:

'martian@midgard.org.' => 78.67283% (142/7367)

Well, when it's followed by a period, at any rate.

tithonium @ 2009-10-15T14:16:00

2009-10-15T21:16:48Z

I started a diet yesterday. Again.
In college I was maintaining a pretty constant 200lbs. After I moved to Seattle, my eating habits and diet changed (shocking!) and my weight went up.
Then I got sick, and it went down, but I couldn't really enjoy it. Then I got better and it went back up. It's been fairly constant hovering in the mid-260s since then. 200 was a good weight for me. 260 is less so. When I think about it, I'm not happy. So, occasionally I get a little depressed and decide to try to fix it. This has, thus far, not worked well. It's a pain in the ass, and, damnit, I like food.

But, I'm trying again. Following the Hacker Diet, because it's simple and I like it. Weigh yourself daily, but only pay attention to the moving average. Eat whatever you want, but calculate the calories and limit yourself based on where you want to go.

I found a blogger who was following the same diet and recommended a couple of iphone apps that help, so I grabbed those: Lose It! and True Weight. The former is good for the calorie counting part, has a nice big database of foods, and lets you construct 'recipies' and re-use previous meals, which is good considering my eating habits. The later lets you enter weight more accurately (one decimal place, instead of integers) and does nicer graphs, so I paid for the full version. Lose It! lets you enter current and goal weight, and how fast you want to lose (or gain, I suppose), and it will give you the calorie budget and estimate when you'll hit the goal.

266.8 yesterday, just a touch over 19 stone. Forgot to weigh today, while getting ready for a [REDACTED].

Set a goal of 250. At 1.5lbs/wk, I should hit that around 2 January. So far, with two and a half days of intake data, I'm /under/ budget, which is surprising. But, that leaves room for a margin of error on calorie counts and the occasional cinnamon square.

Also, I benefit from the fact that I don't usually mind eating the same thing day after day.