Brews you can use

So, I work on a presentation off and on for a few weeks. It’s to a bunch of engineers I don’t know, trying to introduce them to e-mail concepts, internals, basically “how it works” stuff. Second nature to me. I’m a bad public speaker, so that’s a bad sign.

Worse, I’m phoning it in. Everyone listening (and the guy shuffling the slides ’cause I couldn’t get netmeeting to work in time…) is also on the phone. Only I’m off mute. No natural human interaction or feedback.

It’s supposed to be an introduction. I get into micromachine man mode, and blow through the material, in a 45-minute uninterrupted ramble.

But the worst came when I was talking about spam.

(NSFWWCFFW — [not safe for work web content filtering firewalls] stuff behind cut….)
(more…)

So, the wee little toy is working out wonderfully. I do all of my web surfing on it, and some typing too, occasionally. Xterm + dropbear ssh means I can do “real work”, a character at a time. I still reach for the laptop when I need a real keyboard, but the pocket size, day+ battery life, and absolute silence of the tablet mean I reach for it most of the time. It’s truly wireless.

Jess calls it my girlfriend.

I finally got around to installing gnugo and Cgoban on it yesterday, and now it’s getting much more use.

I’ve found the game of go fascinating since sometime in college. The rules and objectives of the basic game are simple, but these simple rules generate a wonderfully intricate game. Actual analysis of a full go game is intractable enough that even the best players rely on instinct and attitude for their decisions, and computer go programs have not advanced as far at professional play as their chess counterparts.

The go board is large enough to have multiple, mostly unrelated “battles” going on in different parts. Turns must be allocated to the different battles, and battles need to be prioritized so that you only burn turns on the ones that may come out in your favor. There’s always a conflict between spreading out to occupy more of the board or concentrating in one area to defend it more thoroughly. It’s a game of balance, where both players need to be spread very thin to have a chance of winning.

Sounds a bit … familiar. It’s wildly fun when it’s just stones on a board, though.

So, at a little before 10:00 this morning, I set about finishing up some documenting. Mind-numbing stuff overall, just recapitulating some of the 1.3.6.1.4.1.666.make.this.stop stuff I’ve been messing with off and on for a month… I needed something else to do, so I started up go on the toy, with no time limits. If I needed a break from documentation, I’d check the toy, ponder a bit, and make a move. The CPU on the Nokia 770 is no speed demon, so gnugo takes most of a minute, if not more, to make its next move. That was enough to keep me from getting distracted by the game. Perfect.

One of these days, I’ll need to play a human. I did a bit of that via NNGS (No Name Go Server) back in the day. That showed me how much of a novice I was (and probably still am). I actually got completely wiped off the board once or twice. At least when I’m pounded into the ground by a computer, I don’t get embarrassed; I think that’s what I get paid for, actually.

And now, a day bad enough to post about. There have been worse, mind you, but today was in a little basin of suckiness attraction where it’s bad enough to mention, but not bad enough to completely exhaust me and shut me up.

At work, I took refuge in writing documentation. ’nuff said.

After work, unruly kids. One spoiled by a day with Grandma, the other is two. A big, steaming, pile of two. Jess’s livejournal friends may hear more details, I’m shutting up now.

What finally worked was…

• 1 cube of sugar, soaked with Peychaud’s Bitters.
• Splash of water to dissolve.
• Tiny, tiny dash of Absinthe (Absente pastis)
• Twist of lemon.
• Two jiggers of rye whiskey

Dissolve sugar, bitters, water, whiskey in shaker glass, stirring well with ice. Coat the inside of the cocktail glass with Absinthe-ish stuff, and follow by rubbing it down with some lemon peel. Strain rest of stuff into glass.

It’s a classic New Orleans cocktail called the Sazerac, a modern variant of one of the oldest known cocktails. Enjoy a bit of history. Share it with the kids. Perfect for settling the nerves after (almost) defenestrating the wee ones.

I just got a new toy.

It’s a slightly-used Nokia 770 off of eBay; pretty cool so far, although the hunt-and-peck “virtual keyboard” is getting a bit old, aud I 7con t truined hl handwvitil eng’nl yxt, so this will be a short first post