Brews you can use

I (re?)discovered the MAKE Magazine blog last weekend, and stumbled across a post on my favorite science/tech show of all time. The Secret Life of Machines was the creation of British special-effects artists Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, and contains some truly superlative “how it works” demos, just the proper amount of wit (British, dry, of course), and none of the modern Discovery channel style overproduction to get in the way/make you want to throw something heavy at the TV.

Because of its quality and brief run, the show became somewhat of an obsession for me: its theme music (“The Russians are Coming” by Val Bennet, a reggae cover of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”) was one of the first pieces of music I sought out back in the heady “illegal file sharing is cool” early days of napster, and I convinced Jess to buy the first two seasons on VHS for my birthday one year. The videos were aimed at the educational market and thus hideously expensive; they also left out the third “Secret Life of the Office” series, which includes (among other things), Tim and Rex demonstrating a pair of makeshift fax machines made from lathes.

The first comment on the MAKE blog post pointed out that Tim Hunkin posted a link on his site to a torrent of the full three seasons. Hey, no guilt. Download ctorrent, spend a day or two downloading 3.6GB of AVIs from random overseas hosts (nobody in the US serving it until I was finished), and start watching.

Best of all, Grace seems pretty interested in them. “I want to watch a show on Papa’s computer.” “Let’s watch the Vacuum Cleaner one.” Of course, comprehension/retention may be a little longer in coming. After finishing “The Internal Combustion Engine” she said: “That was a fun show.”

“Yes I thought so, too…. So, do you know how a car engine works now?”

<thoughtful pause> “I did, but I don’t remember. Let’s watch it again tomorrow.”

“Certainly.”

After putting it off for way too long, I finally started biking to work last Tuesday. I’ve car commuted twice since then, to give my legs a break, but I think bike’s the definite preferred commute. The bike commute keeps me awake and my mind engaged, so I just feel more energetic and alert throughout the day. It’s a nice natural high, and I can feel the beginnings of an addiction — I’ve noticed myself getting uncharacteristically cranky when I’d rather be biking.

I still have a bit of learning to do until I really know how to ride a bike, though. I remember it being much simpler as a kid — “pedal this way really fast, if something gets in your way, turn “. Part of that could have been simpler equipment. My first bike was single-speed cruiser, and by the time I moved in to a ten-speed, I didn’t really see the need to shift.

The ride this time around is a decent used Raleigh mountain bike with nice fat (and heavy) tubes and more gears than I know what to do with — 24 nominally, including the way-too-useful-for-me “Granny gear”. I chose it because (a) I liked the sturdy feel of the cruiser I outgrew long, long ago, and (b) I’m nearly 300 pounds, so part of me thinks I would crush a nice sleek (and light) road bike. I could use the exercise, anyway.

No pictures yet, but think:

but only one of me, and not as well-dressed.

I still haven’t gotten the hang of pedaling smoothly, or found a good cadence. One experienced biker at work suggested 90 rpm as a good spinning speed, and I started trying to find that. 90rpm = 3 revs every 2 seconds, or 3 pushes of the pedal every 2 seconds…. Think 3 beats per measure. Accent the first beat, and you’ve got a nice brisk Walz. “Tales from the Vienna woods” would be a good target. Currently, I seem to be dialing in at more “Blue Danube” speed when I can actually maintain a cadence. The usual mode, though is more like “Hall of the Mountain King” followed by panting and coasting.

Well, at least it gets me there…

I took a look out the west window of our house this evening, and saw an uncommonly astronomical sight for a city where lights in the sky are usually taking off or landing. It was the crescent moon with Venus nearby. Beautiful. This iconic image which has inspired generations of painters and, later, photographers sucked me in for quite a while. It wasn’t quite “guy sees crescent moon and Venus, and converts to Islam” — I’m not a joiner — but the cosmos intruding so nicely on an otherwise normal day was almost a mystical experience.

Aside from the obvious religious significance, it reminded me of “the morning star is the evening star”, and many idle conversations in the philosophy of language with a philosophy major friend from college, and the many trivialities too trivial to be trivia I carry about in my head for some reason.

As an example, I was in Boise last week meeting with “the adversary” (the fellow who decided to outsource my favorite job; the trip was for me helping this thoroughly depressing process along…) and about three drinks in at the local distillery-pub (!), the conversation turned to food and drink. I got a surprised look when I described Everclear using the word “azeotrope” — it turns out he was a chemical engineering major, and never expected to hear that word post-college…

On a lark, I asked if anyone at the table was familiar with transfinite cardinals (or countable vs. uncountable inifinity), and struck out. The first question was “what’s the practical use?” Obviously from a non-math type. The closest that has to a practical use is understanding the premise of the novel White Light Frankly, I don’t even remember the full implications; I’ve forgotten more math than I thought I’d ever learn….

Bah, Point? See subject…

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.

Same code and same input, down to the bit, only works on one machine. Reliably fails on all others. Reliably works on the working one. Same OS and system libraries, also down to the last bit.

I have to conclude that God hates me. Only the sick bastard who designed the tapeworm would be capable of such a finely-tuned annoyance.

The problem is no longer merely taunting me, it’s violating causality. Wait, does that mean it is no longer of this universe, so I don’t need to worry about it?

Slacktivist has posted (among many very insightful and thought provoking things, but it’s late so we’ll ignore those) a “shuffle meme” with a nice twist: Youtube links for selected tracks. It’s a nice idea, but I’m not exactly on board.

Case in point: Tom Traubert’s Blues by one of my favorite artists, Tom Waits. When I get in a music-listening mood, the very existence of Tom Waits makes me transcendently happy. It’s great that someone that good hasn’t burned themselves out, died, or noodled along in mediocrity after losing their touch. I would like to borrow his muse sometime

Tom Traubert’s Blues is one of his better songs, but even it lost something with the video added. I’m not sure what, perhaps it was just the distraction of video, or a clash with the vivid imagery of his lyrics.

The Hold Steady footage in the list is just the opposite. The lead singer’s voice always sounds a bit strained, and the video just fills in the rest of the picture…

For no particular reason, it reminds me a bit of this little gem I pulled from the BSD fortune file several years back:

“Multiply in your head” (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) “365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365″. He [ten-year-old Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!”

An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn’t be as much fun to watch.
    – James R. Newman, “The World of Mathematics”

(It’s almost the problem-solving approach I use at work, BTW. Quite effective. At what, I don’t know. I think people throw me the tough ones just to watch me squirm sometimes…)

What do I have to say? Apparently not much well-formed, possibly interesting, publishable, and “on my mind when I’m in the mood to blog” for the last month or so. This is not a rare condition. I have several friends who blog/LJ/(myspace/whatever, but I don’t do those) who post even less often than I do. This is not a ping — everyone should blog at their own pace — but I had some strange ideas about blogging improving my writing, being able to find something to write about a few times a week, and generally getting better at freezing thoughts into words. No luck.

Occasionally, I think of bowing out officially like my high school chum A.J. just did. It’s preferable to leaving a dead blog hanging out on the blogrolls of the vainly waiting (Hmmm, godot.blogspot.com? of course someone else has thought of that), but I don’t think that I’m done for good (which is for the best, because another high school friend linked to me recently and bowing out now would be poor timing ). A belated welcome to Laura’s friends!

Yesterday was good enough to write about. It was Grace’s birthday; she’s 4 now, which puts here in the range of “kid”, no qualifiers necessary. No “baby”, “toddler”, not even “preschooler” really. Just “kid”. I’m already kidding her about getting old

To celebrate, I blew off work (which is always a good start to the day), and we all took the bus down to the Minnesota Children’s Museum. We split into two groups so the kids could explore at their own pace. Grace and I hit the Bob the Builder exhibit, then the Earth World. Then my phone ran out of battery, and we took a whirlwind tour of the rest of the museum trying to find Jess and Arlo. That’s when I ran into another long-lost friend from high school, who was there with her daughter. We actually managed to chat and catch up a bit in between chasing after kids.

We found Jess and Arlo back at Bob the Builder, and traded kids for a while. Things got a bit blurry at that point (Arlo’s good at that), we probably switched kids a couple more times, and then finished the museum trip playing with elaborate golf ball contraptions. I had to be reminded that this was a children’s museum a few times…

To top it all off, we hit a nice candy store on the way back to the bus stop, and brought home a couple pounds

Surprisingly, I did manage to enter the Upper Mississippi mash-out as I mentioned a couple posts ago. I included the Imperial Stout, bringing the total to 6 entries. I hope at least some of them do well, I won’t know until the 27th.

I’ve recently gotten into Rye Whiskey. A New York Times Article had quite a bit to do with it. If it hadn’t been posted on Making Light and mentioned in a conversation with a co-worker in the same week, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought, and continued to view the few Ryes on the liquor store shelves with a suspicious eye. The article sold me on the style, so I decided to give it a try, starting with a mid-range “value” rye to avoid being turned off of the style by a low-quality example.

First up was Sazerac, ~$25/750ml at Surdyk’s. Quite good, light bodied and spicy. Next, I tried the next step down, Rittenhouse ($12/750 mL) which disappeared pretty quickly also. Rittenhouse was somewhat mellower, but definitely a quality whiskey. Currently, I’m down to “Old Overholt”, a $10/bottle whiskey and thus among the cheaper liquors sold in glass bottles… It’s also my favorite so far, a wonderful value and a good example of the Rye style. I haven’t tried Jim Beam or Wild Turkey yet. As for high-end examples, the only one I’ve seen locally has been a 21yr Rittenhouse for $130/bottle, so I won’t be having one of those anytime soon…

All have been decent sipping whiskeys, but an old out-of-style liquor calls for an old out-of-style cocktail. Rye shines in an Old Fashioned. Its bold spicy flavors give a tasty and balanced version of the cocktail, in contrast to the mellow, sweeter, usual Bourbon version.

They’re also a simple cocktail to make. Put a sugar cube, a thin (1cm) wedge of orange, and a splash of water into an Old Fashioned glass (short, thick bottom, straight sides, ~6-8 oz capacity) and muddle until the sugar is dissolved and the oranges are nicely bruised, especially the skin. Add a dash of Angostura Bitters, top off with 3-4 oz of Rye Whiskey and ice, stir. and serve. This is now my favorite cocktail by a large margin.

Grace asked me to tell her a story tonight. I am quite out of practice in that department. I chose “Three little pigs.” Simple story, unfortunately my brain remembers it as something like:

• Pigs: three
• Straw house, stick house, brick house
• Bad wolf, chinny-chin-chin, huff and puff
• Straw blows in, stick blows in, brick stays
• Happily ever after, etc. etc. etc…

And fleshing it out really tested my ability to be unnecessarily verbose. Entertainingly verbose? I don’t think I have that ability yet.

What prompted the story was, oddly, watching a “Backyardigans” episode where the little whatsits were saying “Eureka!” entirely too often. Grace asked me who “Eureka” was, and while answering, asked if she’d like to hear the story of Archimedes (Brain version: volume of crown?; smart guy takes bath; fluid displacement; Eureka streak!). I told her the story as I was getting her into jammies and brushing her teeth. That was a tough story to tell; it’s quite scientific/mathematical in nature (except for the streaking part), and I’m not sure I got it down to 3-year-old level, but she liked it enough to ask for another story.

I think I like this better than singing, especially since a certain song has been crowding the others out of my head, and I don’t think it’s the best fit for a kid’s bedtime (Maybe on halloween ). It also seems to get me thinking more, which is always a good feeling. Heck, it even got me to blog more than a one-liner…