We got to this year’s Maker Faire fairly early, and saw the many cool things people have built. (It was our first Maker Faire, and we underestimated the event’s popularity.)
Benjamin, who’s recently become an enthusiastic chess player, got to face off against the chess playing robot:
Ben attempted a Scholar’s Mate, was stymied, and then [...]
I think we’ve had two evenings with short snow—without accumulation—and one significant hailstorm—with accumulation—in eleven years here. Intriguing.
Dina and I were, despite all polls, anticipating election nights like the preceding two, where any hope of resolution was delayed, and tension distributed to all election watchers. This year, I was determined to enjoy the evening, and poured something light for the both of us to sip while listening to analyses. Historians [...]
I seeded the 2008.05 release candidate for about 45 hours, ultimately shipping a little over 4100 megabytes. I’m going to take a break, because I want to update my DP2-based workstation and get some work done, but, once we have new bits, I’ll getting seeding again.
(I found the actual result: 4237MiB sent up, so [...]
For the Thanksgiving holiday this year, we decided to explore San Mateo County’s section of the Pacific Coast. Dina settled on Butano State Park as our base, which is mostly made of a redwoods-forested canyon, south of Pescadero and on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. We arrived in the late afternoon, having taken CA-84 [...]
I just want to mention that I knew Alan before his current fifteen minutes.
One of the features of our home library is a sizeable collection of texts on English diction, grammar, usage, and so forth. (The collection was banished to the back office, but bursts out regularly.) Most of these are focussed on general use, and shy away from the changes in meaning that might accompany use in a technical [...]
At work, I’ve ended up on many email aliases; since we moved to pursuing open development on opensolaris.org, my subscriptions and incoming email flow have grown tremendously, to the point where they were interfering with my ability to get work done. My present filter setup involves delivery to 56 inboxes.
I’ve had a small email toolset built around the [...]
At work, I’ve ended up on many email aliases; since we moved to pursuing open development on opensolaris.org, my subscriptions and incoming email flow have grown tremendously, to the point where they were interfering with my ability to get work done. My present filter setup involves delivery to 56 inboxes.
I’ve had a small email toolset built around the [...]
I’ve been waiting for a new electric fan to arrive. I checked in on the shipment today, and the UPS site reports:
07/26/2006 5:30 A.M. THE PACKAGE IS DELAYED DUE TO EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL
On the retailer’s site, this state is [...]
It’s past ten o’clock in the evening, but it’s still 88°F—31°C—and there’s little to no wind. That means the back office is a little too hot to be comfortable…
(I’ve realized I need to deal with a much-too-high interrupt rate at work, in part by ensuring I take out a bit of time for leisure. Here’s an entry I started in April.)
Over the past few years, my reading rate has climbed; perhaps I’ve unwittingly dropped a periodical, or maybe I’m getting back to splitting my reading time [...]
I’ve been wrapping up our tax returns, running reviews and reviewing an actual paper copy. One document (well, two) that I couldn’t find were the bills from the California Department of Motor Vehicles for the car registrations. But I was very pleased to find that they have an online retrieval system to help [...]
Bloglines again suggests the week is shaping up wetly:
Courtesy of bloglines.com:
It doesn’t look like I’ll be packing away the downspout extensions or the portable sump anytime soon…
Most Saturdays, Dina and Benjamin head off to swimming lessons. Nathaniel and I are left to our own devices, which means we go for one of two kinds of walk: a walking walk, where Nathaniel walks, and a seeing walk, where Nathaniel gets pushed. This week, Nathaniel expressed that he wanted to see trains on the walk, [...]
The Wall Street Journal has an article, “Clever Gags Score High On Super Bowl Ads”, with best and worst polls to accompany the online edition. We, for a change, actually watched the SuperBowl this year—with appropriate TiVo gymnastics to cover the grossly underestimated duration given in the television listings—and so can comment on the advertisements. [...]
A couple of people have asked me to comment on the Canadian election last week. Although I was up to date with the limited reporting in The Economist, the two to six weeks of latency in my Maclean’s subscription meant I never really connected with the current situation—I was already rather fed up with the random delays, and am [...]
As I did last year, I’m again reviewing the year from the perspective of blueslugs.com.
Overview. Over 2005, we served up a total of over 8.3 GB of data, through our standard static DSL line: almost an order of magnitude higher than last year. 5.6 GB was blueslugs.com, while the remaining 2.7 GB was from the new domain, highmaintenancemom.com, which is Dina’s [...]
By the way, Dina went to Fairbanks a few weeks ago, enjoyed the chilly contrast with Bay Area weather, and had a productive and fun visit. And, to keep karmic scales in balance, I caught a nasty cold for reminding her of the low low temperatures she could expect.
Nathaniel has keen vision; we often see mourning doves on the power and telephone lines that pass by the front of our house and he is happy to point them out. And occasionally, a raucous crow will perch in one of the nearby trees or atop a pole shouldering the local lines. But [...]
It’s a balmy 9°F (-13°C) tonight in Fairbanks, although with windchill it feels like -6°F (-21°C). Why one would be naked and outdoors to verify that measurement is beyond me.
The current temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska is again -6°F, or -21°C.
The current temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska is -6°F, or -21°C.
@schahn