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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
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12:57 AM
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| Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
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7:45 PM - I'm missing something
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[TestMethod]
public void MockSample() {
int parameter = 5;
Employee expected = new Employee() {Id = parameter};
Mock<IRepository<Employee>> mock = new Mock<IRepository<Employee>>();
mock.Setup(m => m.FindById(parameter)).Returns(expected);
IRepository<Employee> repository = mock.Object;
Employee employee = repository.FindById(parameter);
Assert.IsTrue(employee.Id == expected.Id);
}
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, January 14th, 2012
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12:57 PM - Now
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Now Reading: A Feast For Crows
Now Drinking: Tetley Summer Berries with Rosehip
Listening to a lot Lately:
Tool - Aenima
Carina Round - 2001-11-29 Knoxville TN (Bootleg)
Mutemath - Odd Soul
Oceansize - Various EPs
Radiohead - From The Basement King of Limbs
Watching Lately:
South Park season 5
TTC's Understanding the Science of Tomorrow
---
I was tempted to create an ebook that merged A Feast For Crows with A Dance With Dragons according to this list. The consensus on the discussion boards however was that the link's reading order was a good way to reread the books, but the published order is the way to go for the first read through. One suggestion was to skip half the book. The completely wrong way to read the book is to wait five years after reading A Storm of Swords and then have to wait another 6 years to get to your favourite characters.
The boards also said that the Tales of Dunk and Egg stories should be read in between books 4 and 5.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
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1:55 PM - At lunch today
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Me: When I saw the Sony P, I immediately thought I'd love to wear one on my forearm.
Coworker: Don't do that Jamie. You'll never get a girlfriend if you did that.
Me: If I got that, I wouldn't need one.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Monday, January 9th, 2012
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9:48 PM - Sickness Gone!
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Keys found! Rearranging all my furniture didn't help though. They were in the bottom of a box.
Pins reset! Long process at several banks. "But you use it all the time. I believe that you are Jamie, but I don't understand." (Bank Manager, the third person I had to go through at that bank.)
Back to work! Went to work today and was functional.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, January 8th, 2012
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12:45 PM - Writer's Block: The Walking Dead
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| Friday, January 6th, 2012
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10:56 PM
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Home sick for the last two days. Some how the fever has gotten to the part of my brain that remembers my pin numbers and where my keys are.
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, December 16th, 2011
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6:56 PM - Entertainment
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Tool tickets go on sale tomorrow for January! Awesome. I was starting to worry that there wouldn't be any more concerts until Marillion in June.
I just watched Maynard's documentary on wine making Blood Into Wine ("... and hopefully we'll see you down in Arizona Bay"). I've been listening to Puscifer a lot lately. It's been pretty much just Puscifer and Oceansize on rotation. I found an audience recording of a Puscifer concert from last year that I've been watching a lot as well.
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Got the new Louis CK concert film, which has about half of the concert I saw live. Great show.
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I'm now the archmage in Skyrim. Archery has taken a backseat to Conjure Flame Atronach and Firebolts.
Update: Right after I wrote this, I upgrade to Fireball and Fire breath combo.
---
I'm still slowly working on A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm 23% through A Storm of Swords.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
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7:29 PM - Level 8 Khajiit Thief
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I'm playing Skyrim as a Khajiit female as that is what I was playing on my replay of Oblivion (focusing on the thieves and dark brotherhood guild quests) and that seemed to work. With her for Act One, I was initially focusing on Sneak, Archery, and Light Armour. A pure thief was a bit limiting, so I found that I'm focusing more on Destruction now. I've since gone to Lost Vallkygg to get the Ebony Bow which should help. I somehow missed the Guardian Stones near the start, so I just picked up the Mage Stone to build her Destruction skills up.
On to Act Two!
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(Give your own rant)
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| Friday, November 11th, 2011
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4:41 PM - Skyrim
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| Monday, October 24th, 2011
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9:56 PM - Now
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Now Playing:
Oblivion. Again. This time as a female Khajiit lootsweeper. Getting ready for Skyrim.
Rocksmith. Like Rock Band 3 pro-mode but with an analog guitar pickup. My sister played it and now wants it for her birthday.
Just Dance 3. I got this for my family. It's very very gay. Both lame and homosexual. They overturned Don't Ask Don't Tell for the Kiss Army.
Now Listening:
Puscifer - Conditions Of My Parole. Much more mainstream than their first album, it sounds more like A Perfect Circle than earlier Puscifer.
Puscifer - Cuntry Boner single, V is for Vagina, and assorted other older tracks. I have to stop listening to this at work as I have come really close to singing Cuntry Boner out loud.
Oceansize - Feed To Feed
Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning. Actually, I haven't been listening to a lot music lately, so I haven't really spent the time to get into this yet.
Now Eating:
Green Zebra. I'm being super lazy and having my food delivered weekly. I looked into other services before that were ridiculously expensive, but since this is vegetarian it's similar to eating out all the time.
Now Reading:
A Clash Of Kings. Almost finished.
Just In Case by Kathy Harrison. Saw this recommended on Amazon when I was reading up on building shed and outbuildings as a book that was more pragmatic than paranoid. It walks that line pretty closely.
Natural Gourmet by Annemarie Colbin. Actually I just ordered this today. She founded the place the folks at Green Zebra trained at, so I thought I'd look at her cookbooks.
Now Medicated:
Root canal today, so switching from tylenol ones to local anaesthetic to hopefully just Motrin.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, September 17th, 2011
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11:26 PM - Media
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Now Watching
Breaking Bad season 2
Listening to Lately
Oceansize - Feed to Feed CD1 (Effloresce night)
Oceansize - Feed to Feed CD2 (Everyone into Position night)
Oceansize - Feed to Feed CD3 (Frames night)
Oceansize - Feed to Feed Encores (EP encores)
Oh Land - Oh Land
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(Give your own rant)
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4:45 PM - Cottage Projects
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I've been trying to think of ways to like the cottage more. I realized that money solves a lot of problems I have been having with it and I should have some extra money in the next few years. I have been pitching a few ideas and we're going up next weekend partly to layout the land.
The dock is rotting out and is overdo to be replaced. My dad and brother-in-law figured out what they want to replace it with and I've asked if I could pitch in some of the money for it.
I'd like to throw up a bunkie next year after I get my bonus. We have debated a few spots, but none of the candidates are really standing out. I was thinking of a prefab shed and I like the idea of throwing it up over a weekend, but we can probably make it for half the price if we get the wood from the mill on the lake and cut it ourselves.
The other idea is to rebuild the boathouse in five years. It's around 10'x16' right now and I am thinking of replacing it with a two-story 12'x24' structure. The idea is to make the second floor a loft apartment. The first floor might just be a larger boat house for the fishing boat or the pontoon boat, but a couple small bedrooms would probably be better. I was originally thinking of a prefab two-story gambrel-roof one-car garage like this or this (video), but I couldn't find plans for that style online. I did find plans for this which has the benefits of insulation, outdoor stairs, and a full second floor instead of barn-frame. I'm currently leaning toward that last design, but I suspect that'll increase the cost and labour a fair bit. I'd love to add a bathroom (there is an old but functional septic tank on site), a wood burning stove, and a balcony, but I'll have to study the bylaws and costs to see if that is possible/feasible.
This is still in the daydreaming phase. I still have to get the family all on board and figure out permit stuff.
Oh ya, a new waterpump and BBQ would also be nice.
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(4 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, September 10th, 2011
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3:22 PM - Global Similarity: Advanced
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A few more pictures. These are from 23AndMe and they are similar to the picture from Dr. Doug McDonald.
It shows me (the green pointer) at the edge of Irish/English indicating a southwise pull from some Southern European and/or Near East influence.
( Pics behind the cut )
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(Give your own rant)
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2:16 PM - 23AndMe Ancestry Finder compared to GEDMatch Admixture Chromosome Painting
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12:36 PM - Ancestry Painting
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GEDMatch just added some new features (based on the dataset from DIYDodecad V2 but recalculated), showing chromosome painting so I'll add that up here along with a few other ancestry painting images for comparison.
( Lots of pics )
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, September 4th, 2011
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11:42 AM - Y-Chromosome Genome Comparison
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I got the results from the YDNA SNPs Comparison Project. My Y-Chromosome haplogroup on is J2a3b-M67, rs7893082+.
23AndMe had it as J2a1b*, but while that haplogroup was in the 2008 ISOGG Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree, it was removed for the 2009 Tree. It looks like it was replaced with J2a4h2 in 2009 and 2010. I should probably make a sarcastic comment here about how my possibly Jewish line is a lost tribe. The new results, however, gave me the haplogroup J2a3b which is listed in the 2011 tree.
Haplogroups do not appear to be very useful pieces of information by themselves, however tons of people with known haplogroups and known papers records will be quite informative. Since my two haplogroups are probably quite rare for those two Irish lines, these will hopefully yield interesting information as DNA sequencing used for genealogy becomes more widespread.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Thursday, September 1st, 2011
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9:21 PM - Ancestry Finder (4 parents from same country, 5cM min)
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This result from Ancerty Finder from 23AndMe ancestry labs asks us where our grandparents were born. If someone a) matches DNA segments with me larger than 5cM and b) has all of their four grandparents from the same country, they are part of the lower number of the count. E.g, if all their grandparents are from the UK, they are part of the 1.9% for UK. If it is less than all four grandparents, then it still contributes to the large Percentage (e.g., 7.1%).
We can then message those people we have connections with and compare notes. The purpose of this test is to give you a list of users to contact, rather than telling you where your ancestors came from.
| United States |
17.7%–35.2% |
| United Kingdom |
1.9%–7.1% |
| Canada |
1.4%–5.3% |
| Ireland |
0.6%–4.7% |
| Australia |
0.4%–0.9% |
| Germany |
0.3%–2.6% |
| Netherlands |
0.1%–0.8% |
| Sweden |
0.1%–0.7% |
| Ukraine |
0.1%–0.5% |
| Mexico |
0.1%–0.3% |
| Denmark |
0.1%–0.3% |
| Hungary |
0.1% |
| Dominican Republic |
0.1% |
| Belgium |
0.1% |
...
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(3 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
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10:47 PM - DIY Dodecad v 2.0
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( Header and technical summary )
----------------------------
FINAL ADMIXTURE PROPORTIONS:
----------------------------
10.05% East_European
51.19% West_European
25.85% Mediterranean
0.15% Neo_African
10.49% West_Asian
0.76% South_Asian
1.13% Northeast_Asian
0.00% Southeast_Asian
0.00% East_African
0.02% Southwest_Asian
0.36% Northwest_African
0.00% Palaeo_African
CPU time = 287.96 sec
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(Give your own rant)
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6:31 PM - mthap report
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( Header )
Best mtDNA Haplogroup Matches:
1) H8
Defining Markers for haplogroup H8:
HVR2: 146C 195C 263G
CR: 709A 750G 1438G 4769G 8860G 13101C 15326G
HVR1: 16288C 16362C
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H8 (plus extra markers):
H2a2a(rCRS) ⇨ 263G 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 16362C ⇨ H(16362) ⇨ 146C 195C 709A 13101C 16288C ⇨ H8 ⇨ 114T 210G 13711A 16153A
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup:
Matches(9): 263G 709A 750G 1438G 4769G 8860G 13101C 15326G 16362C
Extras(4): 114T 210G 13711A 16153A
No-Calls(1): 16288C
Untested(2): 146 195
( Read more... )
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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5:53 PM - Relative Finder
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23AndMe relative finder lists 638 potential cousins who are clients.
One person is listed as "3rd or 4th Cousin" and they move up to "4th to Distant Cousin".
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(Give your own rant)
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5:43 PM - BioGeographical Ancestry testing by Doug McDonald
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Male
Most likely fit is 85.2% (+- 12.0%) Europe (all Western Europe)
and 14.8% (+- 12.0%) Europe (various subcontinents)
which is 100% total Europe
The following are possible population sets and their fractions,
most likely at the top
Irish= 0.811 Tuscan= 0.189
Irish= 0.792 Italian= 0.208
French= 0.384 Irish= 0.616
English= 0.938 Chuvash= 0.062
Irish= 0.711 Romania= 0.289
English= 0.660 Hungary= 0.340
English= 0.902 Russian= 0.098
This looks English or Irish with some Continental input.
( Images after the cut )
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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5:53 AM - DNA Data
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My DNA data is in.
Health
Elevated Risks for Venous Thromboembolism, Prostate Cancer, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Restless Legs Syndrome, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease
Carrier for Hemochromatosis.
Reduced Clopidogrel (Plavix®) Efficacy and Increased Warfarin (Coumadin®) Sensitivity
Likely Lactose Intolerance
Likely Sprinter
Likely Blue Eyes
Decreased Odds for Male Pattern Baldness
Blood Groups: ABO: O; Diego: Di(a-b+); Kell: K-k+, Kp(a-b+); Kidd: Jk(a+b+)
(Promethease has me with increased risk for hypertension, but 23AndMe has typical risk)
Genealogy
The genealogy stuff takes analysis, so I'll find out more later.
Maternal Haplogroup:H8
Region: Near East, Central Asia
Populations: Kazakhs, Arabs
Highlight: Unlike most other branches of H, haplogroup H8 is virtually unknown in Europe.
Paternal Haplogroup:J2a1b*
Region: Southern Europe, Near East, Northern Africa
Populations: Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Lebanese
Highlight: Haplogroup J2 is found in nearly one-quarter of Sephardic Jewish men.
These are odd. I trace both lines to Ireland.
Europe: 100%
Asia: 0%
Africa: 0%
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, August 28th, 2011
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3:12 PM - L.A. Noire
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I just finished the career mode on L.A. Noire. It's a 20 hour story that just happens to be in the form of a video game.
It took me a long while to warm up to this game. I found the parts that make it unique--looking at faces to see if they are lying and looking around for clues--to be boring. It wasn't until I said "Screw it!" and followed a walkthrough that I started to like it. That also happened to be when the story elements got stronger with the investigation of the Black Dahlia murders.
The game has a lot of back story told through clips of the Okinawa Campaign which continues to a story running parallel with the game. If you don't use a walk through, at the very least find a guide for the newspapers (which are the triggers for videos) so that you don't miss key parts of the story.
This reminds me of how I was saying to a coworker how good Fallout 3 was and part of my praise was that it "had a lot of story". He shuttered. He plays almost exclusively online multiplayer shooters and doesn't like games with story. There is nothing in this game for him. It's story-based sandbox game. There is some action scenes, shootouts, fist fights, and car chases, but that's just filler in between story elements.
The sandbox elements give us a detailed world of 1947. As with well done period pieces, what usually sticks out is how relatively small the population was back then--particularly in the suburbs. There are 95 cars. My favourite being a black Delage D8 S Poutout as it looked vaguely like the Batmobile, it was fast enough to get me the Lead Foot achievement, and the shocks on the car make it tilt dramatically on turns.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, August 27th, 2011
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3:29 PM - Trait: Patience waiting for DNA results
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I expect I'll get my DNA results on Monday. Someone who sent in his spit two days before me got his results on Thursday.
If the results are accurate, then it should list among my traits:
| Trait |
Confidence |
Outcome |
| Patience waiting for DNA results |
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
Far below average |
There is really three areas of potential interest here.
One is science. I haven't even taken biology in high school, but my academic interests were pushing me towards biology (more neuropsychology than genetics though) and that it something I really should be spending time on if I want to since I need to understand everything. I've started watching the TTC Videos on Biology and got the Campbell textbook to help give me an intro. Even if it the DNA results do not tell me anything useful, this will be a good excuse for some learnin'.
I'm mainly interested in the health section and we'll see what that tells me.
The third area of potential interest is genealogy. This is not particularly a strong interest of mine, but it is where I am spending my free time right now. I have been typing in the paper records my dad keeps to the computer. I've recorded all I have in front of me, but the papers for my maternal grandfather were loaned out. So far there are around 500 people entered.
I've been trying to explain to people why I am doing this and I haven't been too successful. I'm not that interest in who my ancestors are, but I am about to get genealogy data from my DNA and it would be good to have the paper records to compare them against. It is an exercise in comparing two sets of data. The less statistically inclined understand that to mean that I am looking for errors in the written records (i.e., undocumented bastards). It's more like if a person is listed as a possible fifth cousin by DNA, I can look at the paper version and see how they might fit in. It would be more helpful if the two datasets complement each other.
The bastard thing is the big taboo with looking at this stuff too closely. A relative starting hunting a few years back, but completely stopped when he found a bastard. Another relative started it back up again when they found someone with the same name and in the same town as the bastard that potentially could save our tree if we switch to him. Looking at genealogy too closely is like gleefully celebrating bastards when it should be something we are trying to put it behind us.
(Aside: One of the things I especially enjoy in A Song of Ice and Fire is when it protrays someone who looks down on the bastard Jon Snow as an asshole. That series is a big fuck you to the real Christian Golden Rule: "Know Your Station".)
Of the Europeans ancestors I have locations for, they are mostly Irish Catholic farmers (from counties Tyrone, Armagh, Queens (now Laois), and Roscommon) and immigrated to Canada before the potato famine. There is also someone from Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
The story of my last name my dad heard, but was disputed by my grandfather, is that the Milways were all Irish Catholic and when my grandfather's grandfather married a Scottish Protestant he had to change his last name.
Once I get the data from 23AndMe, there are a few other sites where I can use it.
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
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9:19 PM - 23andMe and Me
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I got my kit from 23andMe today. I've spat my dna into the tube and in 2ish months I'll get some info on my genealogy and health. It looks like it'll help science as well.
If anyone is interested there is a sale on until August 9, 2011. Use coupon code YCM48E to get $50 off, making it $157.
I'm curious if anyone else has tried it. If so, I'm wondering if they got anything out of it or is it just a geeky curiosity to it.
There is a feature to compare your genes with family members. It looks interesting, but I'm not sure if it is worth getting my family members in on it. I'm mildly curious how close I am genetically to my double cousins.
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Monday, August 1st, 2011
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9:39 PM - Quick Update
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Seeing Billy Elliot at the Canon Theatre on Saturday with sister.
Found a decent audience video recording of The Book of Mormon musical and I've watched that quite a few times. Holy crap that show is good.
Also read The Book of Mormon: The Complete Book and Lyrics of.
Ordered the DNA kit from 23andMe
Built a MintyBoost box to put in my travel murse for emergencies.
Reading A Clash of Kings on the Kindle. I particularly like that the old conservative ways are not just deeply wrong, but are pretty much useless. Maester Cressen fits that bill nicely, but so does Ned.
I caught up with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) cocobong0 to see The Dexters in The Orbit Room. He adamantly told me that I had to see Sia in concert even though I had never heard of her and I did go. It was good. I liked it and I think I liked the opening act Oh Land even more. He warned me to dress hetrosexually and I understand why he said that. It was pretty much a pride float in front of me. At first I thought it was only lesbians there, but I guess lesbians and not gay guys show up before the doors open.
Speaking of cocobong0, he coauthored a paper in the latest issue of Nature where they found the genome of the potato. One of the results of their research is that they now know how to make french fries that kill us more slowly. I guess the popular press is wrong, genome research hasn't been completely useless.
Had a bunch of massages. The first one was from dealfind and "massage" was the wrong word. She "applied" facial goop to my back and gave my back a facial. Apparently our backs have pores and people actually care about that. *Shrug* The next two sessions were Chinese massages and she squeezed the hell out of the muscle in the left side of my neck. It hurt like hell during, but by the end of the second session the monolith started to move. Because of dealfind, that place has a four month waiting list and my next appointment is in late November, so I found a RMT at the end of my road that I have been to twice so far. I definitely have more range of motion, less tension, and less pain. It still hurts when I tilt my head to the left, but it is getting better.
I'm taking L-tyrosine as I suspect that has helped my mood. It was in both a thyroid supplement I was talking 10ish years ago that really helped me and it's in 5-hour Energy drink which seemed to give me a mood boost two years ago.
The daily discussion at work is which phone/tablet is better and since I have the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone 7/11 sells, I can't really contribute more to the conversation than explaining my total frustration with anything by Apple. I am thinking about making a step forward towards a smart phone in getting a more elaborate phone at 7/11. This one will have bluetooth so that I can use it with the Jabra BT3030 dogtag I've ordered for my bluetooth MP3 player. It's a step towards a smart phone. A very very small step, but a step nevertheless.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, July 23rd, 2011
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12:00 PM - Compressed living room! With Pictures!
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My latest project has been converting my indoor balcony to a compressed living room.
( PICTURES! )
On the left is a Ektorp couch with a Gosa Lilja pillow, two Ektorp lumbar cushions, an Ofelia throw, a Polarvide throw, some throw from Walmart (the brown one), and a Haier Commercial Cool air conditioner. In this weather, I've been sleeping on the couch directly in line with the air conditioner's flow.
At the back is a Not lamp behind the Poäng chair with Poäng foot stool. On the chair is a Sharper Image Deluxe Shiatsu Back Massager and an Ektorp neckroll. Although it is not very visible, there is an Evert stool beside the chair for beverages. The Kindle DX is resting on a Techni Mobili Laptop Cart. The cart doesn't pivot far enough for reading with the Kindle, so there is a Grand & Toy binder and Bräda laptop stand there as well. On the Lack table is Bose speakers, GearHead wireless keyboard & mouse, and an Xbox controller.
Sitting in the window is a Philips 24" LCD monitor. I have a VGA splitter so I can play on the Xbox here as well as my Command Central desk station. I'm waiting for my 4-bay Raid5 enclosure to arrive to complete the Ubuntu system that will hold hopefully all my media which will also connect to the monitor.
Oh ya, I forgot the Erslev rug and the curtains from Walmart.
Update:I'm uploading more pictures which will be here. Including this:
( ANOTHER PICTURE! )
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(Give your own rant)
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| Monday, June 27th, 2011
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2:00 AM - Other Encycliopedias
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I've run across mostly shit articles on Wikipedia lately and I went into my periodic existentialism about it, so it got me thinking. What do I use Wikipedia for? What does it give me that no other source does? What other sources can I use instead of Wikipedia?
I use Wikipedia all the time since Google loves Wikipedia and it is usually the second item there. Looking at the first paragraph gives usually gives me the quick and dirty answer I am looking for. I wonder if I subscribed to Britannica and added the Subscribed Links to have Google give me it at the top, if my web experience would improve. I'm not sure.
I use Wikipedia mostly for lists though. It is great for bibliographies, discographies, list of episodes, and video game histories. That's my main use of it. The tv/movie stuff is looked at while jumping back and forth with IMDB, but neither really replaces the other. I don't really know of good similar resources for music, books, and video games. Wikipedia really does seem like the best resource here, but I might have not looked around hard enough.
I found an interesting pie chart of the pages on wikipedia [link forthcoming] that had almost half of the article on Popular Culture or Biographies. The list of popular Wikipedia-Books is pop culture biography heavy (with the top two being about two video game series). That really put a split in my mind on this topic between pop culture/biographies and everything else.
That popular Wikipedia-Book list was interesting to go through as I wondered to myself if I'd actually read a Wikipedia-Book rather than a conventionally published book. If I wouldn't, then it might not be the best place to go to for quick answers either. I'm on the fence on whether I'd get more out of the Wikipedia-Book on The Beatles or a book from a major publisher. Of the other stuff, the ones that looked the most potentially useful were the math/logic/CS/technology Wikipedia-Books. I suspect that would be one of the main deficits with something like Britannica that would not have as up-to-date and highly technical mathie stuff that I find useful. The books on the sciences, philosophy, geography, and such didn't really intrigue me. I don't think I'd get more out of reading a Wikipedia-Book here instead of Britannica or some other established source.
I think I'm going to try to use Britannica for the next while for everything that isn't pop culture or overly mathie to see if it improves things. I'll continue to use Wikipedia and IMDB for pop. I'm not sure about tech stuff. There should be an encycliopedia of technology and computer science out there that is superior to Wikipedia that I haven't discovered yet.
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, May 29th, 2011
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3:06 AM
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| Sunday, May 1st, 2011
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6:29 PM - Early Asimov
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I'm half way through reading The Early Asimov.
The Asimov FAQ talks about either reading his SF works in action order or published order and I first thought I'd read them using the action order according to lists such as: Wikipedia - List of books within the Foundation Universe, Wikipedia - Complete Robot & "Robot stories not included", Insanely Complete Fiction List, Asimov's Future History, and the list of notable robot stories in the intro to Robot Visions.
I almost had it figured out. Start with the published chronology order of the stories in the Complete Robot & "Robot stories not included" list and make a few adjustments. It looks like "Insert Knob A in Hold B" should get in there, so it's in. The notable list includes a few computer stories and Asimov says he didn't make a distinction between these "immobile robot" stories and the (mobile) robot stories, so "The Feeling of Power" and all the multivac stories probably get included. "Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" assumes you know what a Disinto is from the earlier non-robot stories, but those don't go in. The second half of the Jovian Menace series is already in, so the first half gets in as well. This list will omit stories such as "Nightfall" and "The Ugly Little Boy" which seems wrong.
Finally I said "Ah, screw it!". I've switched reading them in a written/published chronological order. I'll start with the written chronology as laid out in the Appendix of The Early Asimov called "The Sixty Stories of the Campbell Years" (including "The Weapon" and "Big Game" and possibly "Grow Old Along with Me") and then switching to the published chronology.
Even though I have a physical copy of The Early Asimov and they don't sell an electronic edition, I'm using a PDF converted to MOBI to try out the Kindle. I'm still used to reading paper, but the large font size, text-to-speech, highlighting, running dictionary, and bookmarks are all great features. Since I converted this file myself, it won't let me post highlighted passages to Facebook, but everything else besides this and the table-of-contents feature works.
The quality of the stories in The Early Asimov is all over the place. The parts I like have definite anti-religious, anti-authoritarian, and anti-racism themes to it. With a Philosophy BA I particularly liked:So starved and choked did science become, that once more colleges found themselves forced to reinstate philosophy and the classics as the chief studies-and at that the student body fell to the lowest point since the beginning of the twentieth century. I also liked:[With Humans] we have a race of Humanoids of a superlatively technological turn; possessing at the same time an intrinsically unscientific belief in supernatural forces, an incredibly childish predilection toward individuality, singly and in groups, and, worst of all, lack of sufficient vision to embrace a galaxy-wide culture In contrast to all those 'anti-' prefixes, I also want to say there are pro-science themes here, but it is a very naive understanding of science in these early stories. Science is portrayed as a solitary activity and no verification is done at all. It's missing everything that makes science science. Someone comes up with some equations alone and the ship/device is just built and expected to work. There is no science or engineering there, but just math, assembly, and a lot of boasting. After it is made, people are just thrown into it without training. It's just Math->Assembly->Use and then the drama comes when that unsurprisingly fails. The pilots, for instance, boast about how they are the best, but they do not show the slightest interest it learning how to use the new technology. No one trains them and they don't read the manuals. People are too busy saying how great they are to do the very basics of their careers. It's a little odd to have pilots completely uninterested in the ships they fly.
I gave up on the "Black Friar of the Flame", but maybe I'll try again if I can find an explanation of what is going on here. I think my sympathies are with the enemy in the story, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the story so I could be confused there.
The moral Asimov got from writing such a bad story as "Black Friar of the Flame" was that he shouldn't edit the stories anymore as the final story was its 10th version. While Campbell gave him notes on the stories he passed on, they seemed to be about themes rather than copy editing. It's interesting that he portrayed science as a solitary activity when his writing is so isolated. Even in later years, he has no assistants, researchers, copy editors, or anyone else involved beyond the editors who buy or don't buy his stories. Science needs to be a social thing to have peers get rid of bias and to raise potential risks. Writers really needs someone with a coloured pencil to help with writer's craft. It is interesting to read the commentaries between the stories on this topic as he freely admits that it is helpful when people note that he is doing things such as introducing characters at the beginning of the story and not using them, but he doesn't quite go all the way and get someone to help with copy editing and writers' craft. But it did cause me to look at my stories more closely thereafter, and to realize again that writing isn’t all inspiration and free flow. You do have to ask yourself pretty mechanical questions, such as, “What do I do with this character now that I’ve taken the trouble to make use of him?” The biggest WTF moments come from pretty much anything that involves a woman. These even show up in the later commentaries and introductions to his books, but they are strongest in the early works. It is not too hard to pick a favourite WTF moment. The shrill mother in Robbie? Lines like "Woman are all right--in their place" or "And so on and on, until her voice degenerated into a meaningless conglomeration of sounds"? No, it has to be the adoption scene from the story "Half-Breed." The main character is a single man and he had earlier adopted a boy who is half-human and half-martian who is now getting lonely. Now what I am reading when I read this scene is that he goes to an orphanage to buy an attractive 18 year old half-martian sex slave and the only question asked of him is whether he has enough money. That is how I happen read this scene and yet it is written up as if it is a cute side story, so I have no freaking idea what Asimov had in his head when wrote it. As an added bonus, right after he gifts his adopted son with his new sex slave, he whispers to someone "If she had decent hair, I’d marry her myself." :O WTF.
WTF moments aside, the stories are getting better, so we'll see where this goes.
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| Friday, April 15th, 2011
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6:35 AM - Kindle DX and Asimov
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I have been planning to get a Kindle DX in the summer but they are on sale today and if ordered will be delivered on my birthday, so it is on its way.
I already know about Calibre, but is there else I should know about Kindles?
One quirk I have about reading is that I need to pretty much own the complete series of books to be able to start reading it. I have a hard time reading, say Asimov's short stories, when I don't have all of them. I started reading The Rest of The Robots but it says that the second story in it is part two of 'Not Final!' which is not included, so I am simply unable to continue reading the book until I read that story first. Had I already owned a copy of The Early Asimov I wouldn't be stuck. I will spend a lot of time and mental effort making notes and tables plotting out what anthologies I would need, what are the properly reading lists, and what are the proper reading orders.
I bring this up as one of the one of the big pluses of an ereader is that someone probably has made an complete collection of short stories and so I wouldn't have to go through all that OCD. However, knowing that I intended to get the full collection and having a BMV used book store a block away got me to get them all anyway. I have (or its on the way) all his SF novels and short stories with very little qualification. I won't bore you with the qualifications, but I have pages of tables I could show you on that.
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| Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
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10:28 PM - Silverlight
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I've been hearing some wild speculation and misreported rumours on Silverlight the last two days.
"Windows 8 is going to base its GUI on Silverlight". This one seems to be based on the Aero Lite rumour and has caused a bit of watercooler spectulation on Microsoft's unified view focusing on Azure and phones along with the XBox and desktops.
"XBox will have Silverlight." This one has confused me especially as I'm the only one with a XBox I've had this discussion with. The XBox already has Silverlight for its ads on NXE. Silverlight games seem to kinda pointless with XNA already there. Those most excited about this rumoured feature were shocked that the Xbox does not have a browser. Well, yeah. The XBox is heavily, heavily locked down. You get to access Microsoft's network and that is it. Activision would love to run Call of Duty on their own servers, so they can charge for it instead of Microsoft getting Gold membership fees so that people can play COD online. I don't know if Microsoft makes money of the hardware yet, but they used to lose money of the hardware and make it from licensing. They want XBox hardware to be used for gaming and a only limited things like Netflix rather than as a cheap internet PC. Anyway, I seriously doubt Silverlight on the XBox will give people the access to external databases to make things interesting.
"Silverlight is dead on the web. It's HTML 5 now. Panic." Today was the first day of the MIX conference and Silverlight 5 beta is going to be released at the conference. I was expecting it to be released during the first keynote and was looking at the #MIX11 twitter feed since the video stream was down. When the keynote did not mention Silverlight, people were freaking out and then much much later saying that they might have overreacted. That was only after Scott Guthrie said that tomorrow's keynote will be on Silverlight.
I am just getting back to Silverlight development after a few months of focusing on reports, SQL queries, and debugging an old WinForm program. I was thinking, while working on that last thing, that I much prefer to be dealing with logical problems than binding problems.
We'll see what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to some of the new features (such as xaml binding debugging and XPS printing) that'll make my job easier rather than speculating on the death and/or total dominance of Silverlight. (I'll still jump into those conversation though.)
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| Sunday, April 10th, 2011
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4:49 PM - Starman Jones
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I just finished reading Starman Jones. It's the one Heinlein novel I couldn't locate when I read them in the 90s. Besides the two that came out in the mid-00s (Variable Star and For Us The Living) that I still need to get to, I think that was the last one to read. (Though I am not completely sure I've read Sixth Column.)
I saw an interesting contrast between Sam's romantic description of frontier life on Nova Terra (end of chapter 6) where there were no taxes and they have a general anarchistic attitude with the Old West hellscape that depicted in the videogame Red Dead Remption. While playing the videogame, I keep thinking that if I was trapped in this world my only goal in life would be to get on a train to the civilized east. Somehow Heinlein's romantic anarchy frontier living just doesn't have the same effect on me now as it did when I was 19. The world where there are anarchists who shoot tax collectors; military men who are well fed, funded, and supplied with technology (somehow); and everyone else called "beasts" here (oh right, that's who funds them) doesn't have quite the appeal anymore.
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| Thursday, March 31st, 2011
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7:19 PM - SF
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I last read Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge and R.U.R.
The first two Stainless Steel Rat books were a decent adventure yarn. I'm a little confused though as these are labelled "humorous" books. Ummm, maybe I missed something, but I didn't find them humourous at all. As far as I can tell these are supposed to be ironic books as the author knows that he is using the genre's conventions (with an unethical hero that won't kill who gets out of impossible situations) and the author is giving us a knowing wink. I guess. I have the next three in the series, but I'm not in a hurry to get to them. They are okay.
Speaking of science fiction, there is a new facebook poll on what SF people have read.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, March 27th, 2011
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11:39 AM - Vote Compass
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| Friday, March 25th, 2011
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5:03 PM - Text search question
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I have a programming related question about searching text files maybe someone can point me in the right direction.
I have 40 xaml files with style/theming information and I want to find the common elements, so that I could break each of them out into a) a StaticResource for a common value to the same property and b) a file for blocks of xml (probably around a tag).
Anyone know of any fancy Visual Studio plugins, XML fanciness, grep scripts, or whatnots that do a lot of this work?
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| Sunday, March 13th, 2011
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9:57 PM - I, Robot
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I was at the folks for the weekend. I've been grabbing a milk crate of books each time I go back. This crate had the remaining odds-and-ends science fiction books. I accidently left the book I have been reading, Asimov's I, Robot there, so I started reading The Stainless Steel Rat on the trip back.
I, Robot isn't really about robots, well, not the modern conception of robots. His robots are Frankenstein Monsters with three utility multipliers in place to keep them in check. The conflict is caused by the naivity of this particular utility calculus. 'Roundabout', in particular, reminded me of the mediaeval logical problem of Burdan's Ass, but it's the flip side. Asimov's first rule doesn't trump the second and the second rule doesn't trump the third. It is more like the robot acts according to the utility function U=U1*A+U2*B+U3*C where A>>B>>C. That is, the utility of an action that promotes the first rule (U1) is given a much bigger scalar multpier than than ones that promotes the second and moreso the third. The robots are just as stuck as Burdan's Ass, but they get stuck in utility peaks instead of utility valleys (i.e., local max and mins). Both creatures follow poorly engineered utility functions and Asimov's drama deals with problem solving to deal with these robots with these poorly engineered behaviours.
The other thing the book reminded me of is C.P. Snow's famous quote saying there are two cultures: the sciences and the humanities. There are people who are excited about technology and then there are Luddities who are fearful of technology, hubris, and godless soulless machines. What makes Asimov's stories exciting is their rejection of Ludditite fears and instead gives a few simplistic rules can make godless soulless killing machines pretty safe. Add to this some engineering problem solving and embracing logical syllogisms and it is clear why the science culture embraces it and the humanities culture dismisses it. It's clearly in the fan canon and not in scholarly canon.
On a related note, there was a theme in Stephenson's Cryptonomicon between Athena-worshippers and Ares-worshippers which shows why the book belongs on the SF shelf instead of the regular fiction shelves. The science culture are Athena-worshippers and books that promote it are clearly in the SF fan canon even if the world is historical rather than speculative.
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| Monday, March 7th, 2011
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1:08 AM - The Stars My Destination and Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction
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| Saturday, March 5th, 2011
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12:45 AM - Plans
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On a related note, telling extended family members that they are involved in your zombie apocalypse plans and that they would be "very useful to have around during the zombie apocalypse" gets, umm, interesting reactions.
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| Saturday, February 26th, 2011
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11:47 PM - The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
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Hey, The Forever War was excellent. It reminded me of Heinlein quite a bit obviously, but my gut reaction to it is similar to what I had to the Generation Kill miniseries.
After The Wire, I expected to come out of Generation Kill with strong abstract outrage about the war. I didn't. I was just numb. There is something about going through the mundune task of the day-to-day of a soldier where, if done properly, the horror of war itself is just as mundune. Or banal, I should say. Moral outrage has no place on the battle field. Just stay frosty and model through it. (Wow, the pop culture references are coming out tonight even when I suppressed the urge to throw "hate the war, not the warrior" in there.)
The Heinleinian hero can afford the mental luxury of moral outrage and analysis during a crisis. He (usually 'he') is not only in control of his own life, but he can effectively change the world as he sees fit. Mandella does not have that luxury he (spoilers) is conscripted, trained, drugged, and hypnotized to fight. To not fight or retreat is a corporal offense. Society is reformed so there are no other real options. Moral outrage gets you killed. Even when it is desperately needed. You'll have a hard time being outraged at Mandella, not as hard as you would with Ender, but Mandella is not an agent here in any effective way.
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12:54 AM - Science Fiction
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I have been mostly reading non-fiction the last few years, but ever since I've started working here, I have had a really hard time getting into read them.
I'm trying to get back into reading, so I've started with some fiction. I've been picking up some used science fiction. It's been a mix of the 'fan' canon and the 'academic' canon of science fiction. I'll probably read something from Bester, Walter Miller, or Le Guin next. By then the Asimov and Clarke short stories books I've ordered should get here and I'll start on those. I'm expecting that I'll like the fan books more.
I have something I have to admit. My favourite science fiction books of all time and maybe my favourite books period are the GURPS books. Yes, those role playing game manuals. No story. No character development. No good writing. No literature. They just at lets me know that at a certain tech level, the follow weapons, technologies, and abilities are available and my mind can go off from there without a plot getting in the way. GURPS Ultra-Tech, Space, Terradyne, and Cyberpunk were some of my favourites. Yeah, I'll probably be more into the high concept and high technology books rather than literature that just happens to be also science fiction.
Maybe after a few science fiction series behind me, I'll be able to get back into non-fiction. I have amassed a bunch of .NET books I really should get to.
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| Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
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8:09 PM
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Currently Reading: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Was Playing But Finished: Batman Arkham Asylum
Listening to lately:
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Tristan Allen - Tristan Allen
Amanda Palmer - Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under
Violet Sedan Chair - Seven Suns
Ingrid Michaelson - Everybody
Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
Mutemath - Armistice Live
Oceansize - Self Preserved While The Bodies Float Up
Marillion - Less Is More
Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten The Hatchet
Meiko - Meiko
Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman's Woman
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(6 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, February 5th, 2011
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11:07 PM
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| Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
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5:44 PM
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| Monday, January 17th, 2011
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6:09 PM - Treadmill Sountrack
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My treadmill soundtrack right now is Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Leeds United, in particular, has me forgetting where I am.
And, holy amandafuckingpalmer, a new album is coming out this week?!? amandafuckingpalmer!
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, January 8th, 2011
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7:16 PM - Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube page
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3:32 PM
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| Friday, December 31st, 2010
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7:03 PM - New Years Plans
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My plans are pretty much the same for the coming year.
The main thing is staying employed and paying off (most if not all) my (non-student loan) debts. I'm not really making any progress here, but getting a bonus every six months should help out a lot.
Two big ticket items are still left on my list for the apartment: a new bed and a NAS. The apartment is now starting to come along and it'll be where I want it sometime in the first half of 2011.
What I asked for and got for Christmas was a ride to Ikea to bring home some larger items I couldn't (or at least shouldn't attempt to) carry on the subway. I see a few more trips to Ikea and Canadian Tire to get the apartment done.
I want to lose another 10 pounds and build up my cardio. Hopefully I'll restart martial arts training in the second half of the year. I'll need to try some new healthy recipes, so I'm not eating the same two meals continuously. I've been playing a lot of Dance Central with my mom over the holidays, so I'm wondering if the various Kinect games will play a role in getting my cardio up this year.
I'm hoping to learn guitar. I just finished all the songs on easy pro guitar in Rock Band 3 and hopefully going through the harder levels will help me get over the initial hump. I'd like to make some more YouTube videos once I can play some tunes well enough on a real guitar to sing along with. I want to play around with Pro Tools as well. Maybe I'll take some music lessons later in the year.
There are a few topics I want to research or perhaps I should say that there are a few topics I wanted to research 5 or 10 years ago and they are still rattling around my brain even though I'm not particularly aching to go into them now. Right now I just do not feel like reading anything thick when I get home from work. We'll see what happens.
I haven't mentioned anything about a social life and I haven't figured anything out about that.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, December 28th, 2010
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6:58 PM - Games
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Lots of video games with family this holiday.
Even the girls were into it this year. I brought Lips (which I bought just because it came with two wireless microphones) and Dance Central. My mom got Just Dance 2 for Christmas. I don't care for their song lists, but the women folk like them.
Rock Band 3 wasn't that popular. People wanted to play, but I only brought the pro keyboard and pro guitar and they are too hard.
Boys are so easy to shop for. Just get them video games. "Oh my god. This is freakin' awesome." That was for Sonic Free Riders. NHL Slapshot for the Wii was similarly well received.
When we went to see the cottage relatives, I ended up in the basement playing New Super Mario Bros Wii with the young-ins.
I would be playing more, but I didn't leave any money over for Boxing Day sales.
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