Steve Brinich's Journal

Another Metro Management Grumble

stevemb@livejournal.com — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:03:42 GMT

I just sent a text message to starmalachite to pick up a SmarTrip card so she can get the car out of the Metro parking lot (I didn't realize in time that I should leave my card with her and use cash for today's commute.)

Background for readers outside the DC area: Metro switched to requiring SmarTrip as the only payment option for parking after large amounts of parking revenue disappeared into the pockets of sticky-fingered employees. I don't see it so much as a matter of honest people being inconvenienced by thieves, but rather as a matter of customers being inconvenienced by inept management -- it is inevitable that a large population of humans will contain some crooks, but it is not inevitable that the people running the transit system can't find better ways to prevent crooks from making off with the till.

It's The Coverup That Gets You...

stevemb@livejournal.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:18:53 GMT

Federal Agents Raid Office of Special Counsel

Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice.

Agents fanned out yesterday morning in the agency's building on M Street, where they sequestered Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch for questioning, served grand-jury subpoenas on 17 employees and shut down access to computer networks in a search lasting more than five hours.....

Essentially, the news item is a dismayingly familiar tale of (alleged) malfeasance of office and abuse of power. The part that grabbed my attention, in a pointing-and-laughing sort of way, is:

...During the probe, Bloch hired the technology service Geeks on Call to erase his computer hard drive and those of two aides, giving rise to new allegations that he was obstructing justice....

I have a mental image of a petty crook confident that he can't possibly be caught because he saw some clever trick on TeeVee.

A Wiz Of A Substitute Teacher

stevemb@livejournal.com — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:31:13 GMT

Teacher Accused Of Wizardry

LAND O' LAKES -- A Florida substitute teacher said his job disappeared after he did a magic trick in front of his students.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas made a toothpick disappear, then reappear, in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land O'Lakes.

The Pasco County School District said the trick is just one of the reasons Piculas was let go.

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue. You can't take any more assignments. You need to come in right away.' I said, 'Well Pat, can you explain this to me?' 'You've been accused of wizardry.' Wizardry?" Piculas said.

Piculas says the parent of a traumatized student complained after he performed the toothpick trick.

The assistant superintendent said Piculas had other issues, such as not following lesson plans and allowing students to play on computers that were not approved....

Reading between the lines, my guess is that what happened is:

1. The substitute teacher was goofing around with the class a bit, either out of laziness or in an attempt to establish a rapport.

2. One of the parents complained about the act of "wizardry" that had "traumatized" (did they actually say that, or is this something that got interjected by the article writer?) their kid.

3. The superintendant took the path of least resistance and let the teacher go.

4. After the story got out and the ridicule started to come in, the superintendant raised point #1 (which normally would have been ignored as nothing ususual) as the real justification for the dismissal.

Don't Slay That Potato

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:41:32 GMT

Swiss experts say plants have rights too

A report by the government-appointed Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) described interfering with plants without a valid reason as "morally inadmissible".
The committee looked at ethical views held on plants and issues of how their use could be justified.

t said that from a wider perspective, "all action involving plants for the preservation of the human race was morally justified"....

Well, that last part is certainly reassuring.

Computer Oddity & Metro Grumble

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:35:50 GMT

I woke up last night and found that the desktop had shut itself off. My three working theories were:

1. Some oddity caused during installation of ActiveStinc (and ActiveSync Toggle to address the fact that, no, I don't need it using up computing power 99.9% of the time) to enable direct connection of our Wings and the desktop (until now, we've only used the laptop for that purpose).

2. A fan/heating issue.

3. Power failure caused by UPS failure or feline intervention (the big red power button is on top of the UPS unit).

It didn't give any of the "Windows did not shut down normally" messages that would result from a crash or power cut, which leads me to suspect #1. However, it seems to have stayed on all day after my reboot this morning.

As for why I'm here posting this instead of off with Three Left Feet -- apparently the northbound Yellow Line trains weren't running even to the usual lackadasical schedule, and the information board didn't indicate any coming for at least the next 15 minutes (i.e. about the time my last good "bail and make my way home" window closed).

Invasion Of The Mutant Attack Squirrels

stevemb@livejournal.com — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:48:14 GMT

The report is from the UK -- they haven't shown up in North America... yet.

The Year Was 2081, And Everyone Was Finally Equal....

stevemb@livejournal.com — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:58:34 GMT

New rule on car weight bothers Patrick

The IndyCar Series' biggest driver doesn't see eye to eye with its smallest one.

The series' new rule that attempts to equalize the weights of cars, including the driver, is "the first step in making things fair," Justin Wilson said Thursday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the 2008 IndyCar Series begins with the Gainsco 300 on Saturday night....

IndyCar officials haven't announced specifics of the rule. Spokesman John Griffin said it's likely to establish several weight categories, with the heaviest drivers able to subtract weight from their cars and the lightest having to add as much as 35 pounds.....

Reading On The Phone

stevemb@livejournal.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:43:27 GMT

I've been playing a bit more with adding documents to my T-Mobile Wing. So far, it seems to handle Word docs much better than the old PDA (especially documents with pictures).

One odd thing I've noticed is that the "wrap to window" option has an odd little bug that causes a superfluous horizontal scroll bar to appear when an open document begins with exactly one paragraph of text followed by a picture wide enough to require down-scaling to fit in the window. Once I noticed the pattern, the word-around was fairly obvious ("It hurts when I do this." "Don't do that!")

Run-On Paragraphs Aren't New...

stevemb@livejournal.com — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:00:21 GMT

I've been putting various texts from Project Gutenberg on my Wing storage card to have reading material at hand, and ran into something odd. Is it just this edition, or is the text of Gulliver's Travels from the beginning of the first voyage all the way through the initial encounter with the Lilliputians supposed to be one humongous paragraph?

Fairfax County Department Of Useless And Inflammatory Statistics

stevemb@livejournal.com — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:03:49 GMT

Marc Fisher's column in today's Washington Post begins with the question:

What would drive one of the nation's most successful and respected school systems to report which racial and ethnic groups demonstrate the soundest moral character and ethical judgment?

The answer, it appears, is a classic case of bureaucratic "thought" run amok:

But in Fairfax, and in schools across the land, the instinct -- no, the compulsion -- is to amass data points and "disaggregate," ed-lingo for looking at children not as individuals but as members of a group. The move to quantify grows from a religious devotion to test scores, a faith that the shaping of a mind can be mapped like a cancer cell and expressed as a number. And the resort to race stems from the balkanization of society, the self-destructive notion that we are a collection of groups rather than a nation of individuals who believe what it says on the coins in your pocket: e pluribus unum -- out of many, one.

"The superintendent told me that the reason they broke it down by race was that two years ago, the board decided to report all data by race," Hone says. "That was part of the No Child Left Behind frenzy. This is a classic case of a pendulum overswing."

Criminal Mastermind At Work

stevemb@livejournal.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:58:27 GMT

Would-Be Robber Gives Victims His Phone Number

...Jose Velasquez's Mufflers 4 Less shop got more excitement than they bargained for Monday -- the first customer of the day was a masked man with a gun.
"He had his gun out, walking in the office," said mechanic Antonio Diaz.
The three mechanics on duty told him they didn't have any money and the owner would have to come in to open the safe. The man gave them his cell phone number.
"He just told us he would give us the number, and we would have to call when the owner was here and the money was going to get here," Diaz said....

They called the crook to pick up his loot... after arranging for plainclothes officers to set a trap for him.

Icon Meme (via batyatoon)

stevemb@livejournal.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:25:39 GMT

Ganked from batyatoon

The Rules:
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. Whoo!

The five icons selected by batyatoon are:

Keywords: Wanda (White Leather)
Comments: Erfworld (www.erfworld.com) by Rob Balder & Jamie Noguchi

The artwork is from the webcomic Erfworld, writing by Rob Balder (yes, the FuMP Rob Balder), illustrations by Jamie Noguchi (who I've heard on a panel last Balticon, but haven't really met). I've done a whole passel of Erfworld icons (and picked up a few tricks by trial and error on converting images to icons while minimizing filesize and preserving image quality), since it's one of the webcomics that 1)I like and 2)I know that the creators are cool with icon creation as long as they're properly credited.

I tend to use this one when there's some salacious angle to the conversation, for some reason.

Keywords: Parson (Your Brand Here)
Comments: Erfworld (www.erfworld.com) by Rob Balder & Jamie Noguchi

Another Erfworld icon; I've pretty much covered that aspect of it above.

I tend to use this one to represent speechifying (Parson holding the soda can like a microphone); I think once or twice the "YOUR BRAND HERE" joke might have also played into it.

Keywords: Cthulhu O R'YLEH?
Comments: (none)

I'm not sure where I first encountered the Cthulhu parody of the (in)famous O RLY? owl, but making my own version was inevitable once I figured out the trick of getting the lettering to come out clear against a somewhat busy background at icon size. (A thumbnail description: Create two duplicate layers of the text on a transparent background, fill the text of the lower layer with a color that generates a good contrast, blur, set layer to about 25% opaque, and merge. This creates a subtle but definite "cloud outline" around the text, making it "pop" a bit.

I tend to use this one for, well, asking "O RLY?"

Keywords: Mad Hatter (Tenniel)
Comments: From the illustration by John Tenniel

Another one where the source is just as it says in the comments.

Turning this one into an icon was a bit tricky; the line art tended to vanish when shrunk to 100x100 pixels no matter which type of smart, semi-smart, or dumb scaling I used. I tried a few tricks on the original image to counteract the effect, but the result erred too far in the direction of overly dark lines. Finally, I hit upon a trick that worked: turn the white parts transparent, create dual layered copies of the black-on-transparent line art, blur the bottom layer just a bit and make it about 30% opaque, and merge everything onto an all-white bottom layer. That produced a line art copy with just a bit of extra light-gray thickness; after scaling, it came out just right.

I tend to use this one to suggest that somebody is bloviating impressive-sounding comments that don't mean as much as they might seem. More often than not, that "somebody" is me.

Keywords: Respect The Law
Comments: The Constitution is not an obstacle to the American form of government

This is the only one of the five where the comment is actually a comment rather than a source credit.

I've used the "If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example" as a sigline in various places just about as far back as I can remember knowing what a sigline is. Superimposing it over the Constitution (that being the "law" my government is supposed to respect, but generally doesn't) was just a matter of getting the technique (see above) to work out.

I tend to use this one when somebody in power does something more outrageous than usual.

Post-Lunacon Wrapup

stevemb@livejournal.com — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:55:21 GMT

We got to Lunacon a bit late Friday (between traffic and a the road signage not agreeing very well with the Yahoo Maps instructions). I spent a few hours at the open filk and crashed early to wake up for my 10:00 and 11:00 panels.

Not surprisingly, the panelists outnumbered the audience for most of the two hours. The first one (on running conventions) was mostly an exchange of anecdotes. The second one (on feeding the fen) was the "WTF am I doing on this one?" panel; I did manage to contribute one possibly useful observation (finding out about people's food restrictions is more critical for a small con, because the "buy some of everything and everybody will have something" strategy is less viable with small groups).

After that, I wandered for a while between the game room and various panels; the one I recall best was one about bad science in (nominally) SF movies. Somebody mentioned the Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics page, which I'll take a look at later. At one point, I joined a game of Munchkin Blender, which I ended up winning. The player to my left seemed to get all "screw you" cards and tried a strategy of blackmailing people to give him treasure; I decided not to pay the Dane-geld and took the lumps until he started focusing on the other players. That may be part of the reason I ended up winning.

Sunday was fairly low-key; after we lugged stuff to madfilkentist and starmalachite's cars; I caught a couple more panels and hung out in the main filk room as people gradually left. We eventually headed out at about 5:30, stopped at a diner in Edison for dinner, and arrived back home at about 1:30. I'd arranged to take today off, and slept in.

Off To Lunacon

stevemb@livejournal.com — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:47:50 GMT

starmalachite and I are preparing to get on the road. The cats (or at least the two brighter ones) have gotten clingly after figuring out that The Humans Are Leaving.

Hope to see some of you there.

Death Defeated By Decree

stevemb@livejournal.com — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:21:39 GMT

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

Leg Pull

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:39:22 GMT

Something went pop in my left calf on the way to the bus stop this morning. It doesn't seem to be anything terribly serious, but it's enough that I've been limping all day. (Fortunately, I've actually been sitting at my desk most of the day and limping when I absolutely have to get up and move. The "paperless office" upgrade that just got implemented did come in handy in that regard.)

I called starmalachite to tell her I wasn't going to make it to the group dance practice, and she insisted on detouring to give me a ride home before continuing.

It's been getting less painful and more just stiff and unresponsive, which seems to be a good sign.

Movie Quotes Meme

stevemb@livejournal.com — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:36:16 GMT

Movie Meme, picked up from several people:

A. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
B. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
C. Post them here for everyone to guess.
D. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

1: (Ed Wood, answered by allisona )
"Why if I had half a chance, I could make an entire movie using this stock footage. The story opens on these mysterious explosions. Nobody knows what's causing them, but it's upsetting all the buffalo. So, the military are called in to solve the mystery."

2:
"There are lots of things worse than movies: politicians, wars, forest fires, famine, plague, sickness, pain, warts, politicians..."
"You already mentioned them."
"I know I did. They are twice as bad as anything else."

3:
"Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader's mule, the radio is gone and we're leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we'd need sleigh bells on this thing."

4:
"Another one of them new worlds. No beer, no women, no pool parlors, nothin'. Nothin' to do but throw rocks at tin cans, and we gotta bring our own tin cans."

5:
"In every city and province, lists of the disloyal have been compiled. Tomorrow they will learn the cost of their terrible folly... their treason."

6: (Animal House, answered by grayhawkfh )
"I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

7:
"Do you know why the number two hundred is so vitally descriptive to both you and me? It's your weight and my IQ."

8: (Back To School, answered by grayhawkfh )
"First of all you’re going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the Teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there’s long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the Boy Scouts."

9:
"Some crazy lady was going to cut your heart out and you wanted more specific instructions? Perhaps you'd want it in writing or a diagram maybe?"

10: (Spider-Man, answered by grayhawkfh )
"I chose my path, you chose the way of the hero. And they found you amusing for a while, the people of this city. But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually they will hate you. Why bother?"

11: (Time After Time, answered by allisona )
"We don't belong here? On the contrary, Herbert. I belong here completely and utterly. I'm home."

12:
"With your ancient, juvenile minds you have developed explosives too fast for your minds to conceive what you are doing. You are on the verge of destroying the entire universe. We are a part of that universe. This is our last..."

13:
"This is a multi-million dollar installation, okay? He can't make that kind of decision, he's just a grunt!... Ah, no offense."

14: (Blazing Saddles, answered by scifantasy )
"Now I don't have to tell you good folks what's been happening in our beloved little town. Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted, people stampeded, and cattle raped. The time has come to act, and act fast. I'm leaving."

15:
"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do."

Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, I'm Your Cat

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:18:27 GMT

Vir has been particularly demanding since Boskone, and makes it perfectly clear every morning that he is not happy about me leaving for the day.

At least he doesn't bother my breakfast. Not since the Jalapeno Cheddar Bagel Incident....

Disclaimer Madness

stevemb@livejournal.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:05:47 GMT

While doing some monitor shopping (like window shopping, but without having to get up and walk) for a case for my Wing, I stumbled upon a listing that stated at the end of the various bullet points:

* Phone not included.

The sad thing is that there probably are people out there who would feel ripped off (or claim to feel ripped off and launch a nuisance lawsuit) if they didn't get a new smartphone as part of a $15 purchase....

Surprise! It's Winter!

stevemb@livejournal.com — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:08:31 GMT

You'd think that after it happens enough times, the powers that be would eventually learn that when it's cold for a few days and then it rains and snows, the roads and sidewalks will get slippery unless somebody puts salt on them....

Fortunately, it looks like the situation will be better by Friday, when we have a dawn flight to Boskone. Last year... well, I prefer to forget last year.

LJ Mobile Glitch

stevemb@livejournal.com — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:42:46 GMT

I managed to post a couple entries with just an image, apparently by putting it in a directory used by LJ Mobile. Sorry if I spammed anybody's Friends page before cleaning it up.

Test LJ Mobile

stevemb@livejournal.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:08:11 GMT

Testing LJ mobile.

Edit: Now that I've confirmed that the post made from the Wing showed up, extending it and shifting it from private (just to avoid spamming people with a contentless test post) to public. After some initial problems, ActiveStync seems to be behaving itself.

More Wing Stuff

stevemb@livejournal.com — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:30:49 GMT

So far, I've managed to set up the basic phone functions on the Wing and get the old address book transferred (by cable -- I haven't been able to get Bluetooth sync to work. Based on what I've been able to find online, I might need to install XP Service Pack 2 to get the drivers for Bluetooth ActiveSync).

During the bus ride to work yesterday, I discovered that quite a few of the neighbors seem to have unsecured wireless networks. I think I'm going to need to turn off WiFi when not actually in use in order to save the batteries.

So far, battery life seems OK; it was down to a bit over half this morning after being charged yesterday. However, when I took it out just now, it was unusually warm and down to 15% -- the most likely explanation is that I put it away without turning it off or locking down the touchscreen, and some intensive process or other started and kept runnning.

Wing-ing It

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:28:24 GMT

After a bit more research, starmalachite and I ended up deciding to renew with T-Mobile and get a pair of Wing phone/PDA units. It's a bit too early to judge how the battery life will hold up under our typical use pattern (when he showed us his Wing at GAFilk, partiallyclips mentioned that he has to recharge it fairly often, but he uses it rather heavily); other than that potential issue, it's working out well so far.

As I was transferring and reorganizing my phone directory, I found a half-forgotten listing for "MORON". After a moment, I recalled that entering that number and setting it to a null ring was a workaround to banish some nitwit who couldn't wrap his head around the concept that there was no "Ernesto" here, and there still would be no "Ernesto" here no matter how many times he called the same number.

While entering a calendar entry for Boskone, I noticed the lines:

Category: Conventions
Attendees: No attendees

I'm sure the concom will be terribly disappointed.

GAFilk Days 2-3 (And After)

stevemb@livejournal.com — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:05:28 GMT

Saturday had a very good lineup of concerts, and a showing of some of Brian Richardson's DragonConTV videos. After the batch of 2x10 (two songs/ten minutes), there was a break for people to get ready for the banquet. As usual, the banquet entertainment was excellent; I only joined in one dance myself, but there was generally as large a crowd as the portable floor (that had to be moved back into place a couple times as it drifted too close to the control board) could accomodate.

I don't recall the exact amount raised by the Interfilk auction (but it was fairly substantial); the item that particularly impressed me was the calligraphic rendering of "Rich Fantasy Lives" (autographed by the authors, filkertom and partiallyclips ) went for (IIRC) $300.

The Saturday night open filk went fairly strong until about 4 AM, with occasional pauses into chatting mode toward the end. A guitar and bag was left in the room; the folks in the other room weren't completely sure but thought it belonged to filkerdave; starmalachite and I took it to our room and she left messages with every known contact route for him.

I got up around 11:00 Sunday, and just after I got dressed filkerdave called and confirmed that it was his guitar and bag. He dropped by to pick it up; then I finished getting myself together and headed down to programming (after going back to the room to get my checkbook to prereg for next year, and then back again because I'd forgotten something else -- I forget what).

People hung around chatting for a while between closing ceremonies and dinnertime. During a conversation in the hall, a bit of techno-neepery broke out, and partiallyclips   let us take a look at his Wing (one of the possible phone/PDA combination devices we've been considering now that our current T-Mobile phone contract is up). The features look good; on the other hand, he mentioned that the batteries tend to run out fast; on the gripping hand, I doubt that I'd be using it nearly as intensively as Rob does (e.g. "...adding a couple more CD sales to the FuMP records... go over the next section of Jillian's backstory... etcetcetc...").

We joined a dinner party to a local barbeque place (I'll just refer you to thatcrazycajun  's description, since he sums it up so well). Afterwards, we settled down for the dead dog, which ran well past midnight before the last remnants (including me and starmalachite ) broke up.

Monday morning, starmalachite   and I checked out and hung around the lobby with a few of the folks who were still around (including the Bohnhoffs and Peter Beagle) until we caught the airport shuttle and left the hotel to the upcoming convention of card shuffling experts. There was still plenty of time before Peter Beagle (and his companion whose name I'm blanking on) and the two of us had to catch our respective flights, so we had lunch at the Chinese place in the Councourse A food court. Afterwards, we made the long march down to our gate and caught our flight and got home without incident (except that starmalachite  's filk-gear bag lost a wheel -- not a major loss, as it was starting to fall apart anyway).

starmalachite   went to Monday night dance group; I stayed home partially to soothe the cats' wounded psyches and partly because I was starting to crash out (I ended up going to bed before she got back).