Your loser update: week 9.

November 8th, 2009

I thought perhaps it was too much to expect another 0-16 run after last year. I had hopes that the Lions would make it 0-32, but those were dashed. But it hurts that Green Bay lost to Tampa. You see, I have a certain fondness for the Packers; I admire their ownership structure, and I have a certain amount of affection for the silly cheeseheads, among other reasons.

Sadly, the Pack wasn’t able to pull this one out.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

None.

That’s all, folks. Drive carefully, and remember to tip your waitress.

Edited to add: But, hey! The New Jersey Nets still have a shot at going 0-82! Too bad I don’t care about NBA basketball (or, as I like to call it, “our long national nightmare”).

Posted in Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

Extreme geek humor.

November 5th, 2009

Inspired by chapter 6 of Learning Python (the 3rd edition, alas).

IDLE 1.2
>>> A ='A'
>>> A is 'A'
True

(Well, I thought it was funny.)

Posted in Geek, Python, Rand | Comments Closed

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everyone!

November 5th, 2009

The Gunpowder Plot Society.

Antonia Frasier’s Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot.

Edited to add: Speaking of revolt against established government, I was totally unaware that College Station voted out traffic enforcement cameras until I read about it in…the Washington Post?

Posted in Books, Cars, Clippings, Explosives, Law | Comments Closed

A boat is a hole in the water…

November 4th, 2009

…that you pour money into. But $10 million for a mast? Even a carbon fiber one?

Edited to add: FARK has provided a link to coverage from Sail-World.com which is a bit more detailed than the linked NYT article above.

Posted in Clippings, Loser, Stupid | 1 Comment »

Everlasting cogstockers.

November 3rd, 2009

By way of Jimbo, we learn that two WP employees, Henry Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia, had a bit of a disagreement over the merits of a story co-written by Roig-Franzia. The Honorable Mr. Roig-Franzia allegedly called the Honorable Mr. Allen a “c—sucker”, at which point the Honorable Mr. Allen allegedly attempted to give Roig-Franzia high cause to seek out a periodontal reconstructionist.

This story has been covered here and here; in addition, Gene Weingarten of the WP (and a writer whose work I have a complicated relationship with) weighs in here. It comes as no great shock that Weingarten weighs in on the side of

Hooray that there is still enough passion left somewhere in a newsroom in America for violence to break out between colorful characters in disagreement over the quality of a story.

I understand Weingarten’s point of view. I grew up on Mencken and Liebling. There’s a big part of me that supports the whole “Break it up, you two, we’ve got a newspaper to put out. You can settle down at the pub after deadline.” side to this story.

But. I work for a company that’s close in size to the Washington Post empire. I’m pretty passionate about my job. I’ve had disagreements with people in other departments, too; disagreements that were serious enough for me to consider inviting them down into the parking lot for a frank and open exchange of views about the nature of the social contract. The key word there is “consider“.

If I called one of my co-workers a “c—sucker” (or, for that matter, a “bony-a–ed b—h”) I would expect to be fired. I would consider myself lucky to get merely a serious reprimand from HR. If I took a swing at one of my co-workers, I would be fired. Our visions of Hildy Johnson aside, why should newspapers be any different from any other business?

(I also wanted to call this out because Allen apparently called the story in question “the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years”, leading to much entertaining speculation about what the worst story was. The official answer appears to be something about Paul Robeson that was so error-ridden it was never printed. However, there’s lots of entertaining speculation at the links above, including multiple mentions of Sally Quinn.)

Posted in Media | Comments Closed

Random notes: November 3, 2009.

November 3rd, 2009

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m something of a connoisseur of failure. This leads me in many directions, including savoring Broadway flops. (And that, in turn, reminds me that I need to replace my copy of Not Since Carrie. But I digress.) So, of course, I have to note the NYT‘s navel gazing story yesterday on what went wrong with Brighton Beach Memoirs. (The linked comments seem to me to be more perceptive than the article; in brief, people are saying they don’t want to pay $100+ a ticket plus expenses to see something their kid’s high school produced last year.)

I also wanted to note the LAT obit for controversial rocket scientist Qian Xuesen. Xuesen is a prominent figure in George Pendle’s fascinating biography of fellow rocket scientist and genuine freaking weirdo Jack Parsons, Strange Angel, a book which I strongly recommend. (When I say “genuine freaking weirdo”, I mean it. Parsons did seminal early work on rocketry; he was also a leading follower of Aleister Crowley and an active practitioner of thelmic magic. He also lost one of his lovers to none other than L. Ron Hubbard, and died under rather bizarre circumstances.)

Posted in Books, Explosives, Geek, Loser, Obits, Theatre | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 8.

November 1st, 2009

Well, well, well. It looks like the hapless Rams actually managed to pick up their first victory against none other than the hapless Detroit Lions in what should have been called the “Who Cares? Bowl”.

Also, in somewhat less amazing news, Tennessee actually managed to win a game against Jacksonville, even with Vince Young quarterbacking. I’m dubious about Young in the long term; we’ll see next week about the short term.

Tampa Bay had a bye this week, so…NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Tampa

Posted in Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

Steam engine time.

November 1st, 2009

Last Sunday, a blood relative of mine was rear-ended while driving their Toyota Avalon; the force of the collision was sufficient to total the Avalon.

This Sunday, I was rear-ended while driving my mother back from San Antonio in her Toyota Avalon. Fortunately, it does not look like this Avalon is a total loss.

If you drive a Toyota Avalon, or are related to me by blood or marriage, please be careful on the highway until further notice.

(As a side note, Trooper Seth Fry of the Texas DPS was kind, polite, sympathetic, and made a stressful situation somewhat easier to deal with. My thanks to him.)

Posted in Cars, Thanks, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Happy Halloween.

October 31st, 2009

I am not sure why this story is in the Statesman rather than the HouChron. However, the Statesman has decided to acknowledge the 35th anniversary of Ronald Clark O’Bryan’s murder of his son.

This happened shortly after my family moved to Texas. I remember reading about it in the Chron at the time, and the story still makes me angry.

“This guy had never had anything but a parking ticket in his life,” he said. “So how did the evidence support that he wasn’t capable of rehabilitation?”

Well, gee, Clyde, I don’t know. Maybe because the evidence shows he killed his own kid for the insurance money – and, by the way, also tried to kill four other kids to cover his tracks?

I’ve mentioned this at least once before, but, for the record, here’s one of my favorite Halloween stories.

Edited to add: I’m going to throw this in, for the benefit of Andrew and other folks who don’t read SlashDot; a pretty good explanation of what’s going on with the Bay Bridge, complete with photos and diagrams.

Edited to add 2: When I clicked through to this article on the NYT website, the Times decided to display an ad …for Brighton Beach Memoirs. And as a libertarian who eats out a lot, I don’t see a damn thing wrong with this list, except maybe that the people who need it the most are also the least likely to read it.

Posted in Clippings, Food, Law, Roads | 2 Comments »

Random notes: October 28, 2009.

October 28th, 2009

The NYT has an interesting article about Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame) and how he’s changed after the death of his father.

This has been linked elsewhere, but I wanted to throw this up mostly for Andrew: local coverage of the SF Bay Bridge closure.

I’ve also been meaning to note the unfortunate incident on I-40, mostly because I’ve been somewhat baffled by it; however, the linked article helps make a little more sense of it. It looks like the slide is in an area that’s not easily accessible to the heavy equipment needed to remove the rocks; it also looks like NCDOT is going to want to spend some time stabilizing the slope, and then you’ve got to make sure the road bed is in good shape…

Tim Page has been popping up a lot recently as I make my rounds; first (by way of Jimbo) on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, then in an online chat at the WP. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Page, he’s a former classical music critic at the WP (and winner of the Pulitzer for criticism in 1997) who briefly became notorious for going off on Marion Barry’s aides after they kept spamming him. (“Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new and typically half-witted political grandstanding? “)

Page has a new book out, Parallel Play, about discovering fairly late in life (age 45) that he had Asperger’s Syndrome. The Gross interview is particuarly interesting, as it concentrates on Page’s relationship with the music of minimalist composers such as Reich, Riley, and Glass. I’m wondering if there’s something specific about minimalist music that connects with Aspergerians and, perhaps, with the autistic as well. (As we know, Bob, much of the spoken text of “Einstein on the Beach” was written by the autistic Christopher Knowles.) I am curious to see if Oliver Sacks has any thoughts on the subject; I’m also interested in reading Page’s book.

(Before anyone asks: I have Look Me in the Eye on my stack to read, and will probably get to it eventually. I’ve been a little put off by the fact that Robison’s brother is Augusten Burroughs, of Running with Scissors fame.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Geek, Media, Music, Neuroscience, Roads | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 7.

October 26th, 2009

There’s not a whole lot to say at this point: Tennessee lost to the bye week, Tampa flew to London to get beat (thanks to Andrew for pointing that out), the Rams didn’t go anywhere and still got beat, and Jim Zorn is still employed at Washington (this could change after tonight).

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Tennessee (bye week)

Tampa

St. Louis

Posted in Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

Academic update: Fall 2009.

October 22nd, 2009

I seem to recall mentioning previously that the semester had wrapped, at least for me.

Before I left for work this morning, I checked my email and found that one of my professors had posted the final grades in her class. Which is a good thing; after all, it isn’t like I’ve spent most of the past week and a half checking the grades online three or four or five times a day. At least, not only because of that class…

Short summary: A in the speech class, A in the SQL Server admin class, the 4.0 GPA streak continues.

(I’m still looking forward to reading the speech prof’s comments on my final presentation.)

Posted in Geek, School | 3 Comments »

Random notes: October 22, 2009.

October 22nd, 2009

Today’s NYT continues covering the Sedona sweat lodge incident:

Dr. Bunn, who had signed up for the $9,695 “spiritual warrior” experience

It must be nice to have more money than sense.

A psychic in Waynesville, N.C., Page Bryant, who was among the first to claim in the 1980s that Sedona had several “vortexes” of high energy — the initial lure for the legions of seekers — said that she became fed up and left nearly two decades ago “because of the craziness I saw going on in the New Age community.”

Wow. When the crazy people think you’re too crazy, maybe that’s a sign.

…the comments of a self-described “channeler” who visited Angel Valley after the retreat. Claiming to have communicated with the dead, the channeler said they had left their bodies in the sweat lodge and chosen not to come back because “they were having so much fun.”

Also in the NYT, the latest “trend” story: the return of the restaurant matchbook.

On the “Art, damn it, art!” front, here’s the LAT on the art in front of the new LAPD headquarters building. I’m thinking #4 in the slide show looks a lot like someone with their head buried in the sand.

In local news, some folks in the neighborhood are trying to get TABC to pull the liquor and operating licenses for the Nutty Brown Cafe. I drive past the Nut on a fairly regular basis; it isn’t like there’s a whole lot out there. Additionally, my great and good friends Andrew and the actor we’ve hired to play Karl play live music at the Nut from time to time, and I do kind of like the food there (we had a dining conspiracy there recently, and I have to say my opinion was a minority one) so I’m not exactly sympathetic to these complaints.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Food, Media, Stupid | 1 Comment »

MIT OpenCourseWare: 6.00, the home game (Part 1).

October 21st, 2009

School has wrapped up for the semester, at least for me. (Yes, I’m aware it is mid-October. Yes, I’m aware normal people are dealing with mid-terms. What can I say; that’s the way the St. Ed’s New College schedule worked out this time around.)

Now that I’ve got some free time, I can engage in some useful projects, like more Project e work (I’ve got a long multi-part post in the works that I hope to finish soon), updating the SDC pages, and perhaps some outside study.

I’ve written here before about the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative, and I decided this would be as good a time as any to start working through 6.00, “Introduction to Computer Science and Programming“. As I was reviewing the various readings, a thought came to me.

“Hey,” I said to myself, “wouldn’t it be nifty to blog this as you’re taking it?”

“That’s a definition of ‘nifty’ I was previously unaware of,” I responded.

“It’d give you some motivation,” I said.

“Why am I talking to myself?” I responded.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Have you considered medication?”

Anyway, my need for psychotropic medications aside, this seems like a good idea, if only to give my loyal readers something to laugh at. So…

Lecture 1.

Course readings.

Getting Started: Python and IDLE.

Problem set 1.

My code for problem set 1. (This has been tested on Project e with Python 2.6.2, on the MacBook with Python 2.5, and on the Nokia with Python 2.5.2. I haven’t tested it on my work machine yet.)

Comments on my code or coding style are welcome; as a matter of fact, they are downright encouraged.

Posted in 6.00, Apple, asus_eee, linux, MIT_Open_Courseware, netbook, Nokia, project_e, Python | 3 Comments »

Obit watch.

October 20th, 2009

Howard Unruh finally died at the age of 88.

Unruh is mostly forgotten today; on September 6, 1949, he went on a shooting spree and killed 13 people before he was finally taken down. Unruh never stood trial; he was found to be insane and spent the rest of his life in confinement.

The Times obit does include a link to Meyer Burger’s story for the paper; that story won Burger the Pulitizer Prize for local reporting, and is also reprinted in the Library of America True Crime collection.

Edited to add: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind has an excellent (and far more thoughtful) post up as well.

Posted in Law, Media, Obits | Comments Closed

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