Saturday
- It's the first day of spring. Here is a webcam shot from San
Francisco:
Sunrise over the Bay Bridge.
In other news, Amazon.com has another book suggestion for me.
I'm not quite sure how Amazon makes these bizarre connections. Cholera
isn't passed by hugging (touch), rather it is a water born parasite.
And, since the new book won't be released for a couple of weeks (April
1st) the "have also purchased" comment is a lie. Apparently it's just a
random linkage.
I particularly like how they don't even do a mail-merge with my name,
ie: Dear Ed,
but rather have a hyperlink back to themselves
as a salutation. It's the little personal touches that make these communiques
so special.
These recommendations could become a regular feature here.
In other news, my Dad saw a Lion Cut on a local cat today. Cool. I've
heard of them but never actually seen one myself.
In other other news Dad won a quarter from me today, when the Giants (in the
cellar) beat the Brewers (#3 in the west). Down 25 cents and it's still
pre-season. This isn't looking good...
Friday
- I'd posted on Nvidia's graphic card parallel processor (GPU, for Graphics Processing Unit) before, Tesla. I
didn't realize that they also let you use their standard graphics cards
in the same manner, using the Cuda
interface.
Neat. Though an 8800GTS costs about $400, if it can operate in the
range of hundreds of gigaflops it would be worth it. Well, perhaps, if
I was
still in the computational fluid dynamics racket it would be. I
couldn't actually find a price in $US for the Tesla, oddly enough, but
at the
current exchange rate, the British £370,00 for
the Tesla card would be about $740, double the cost of the
8800GTS.
Crayon Physics.
Pretty neat. Just a foretaste of what will eventually happen with
simulations.
The weather on Mount
Washington. Wow.
Welcome to Kansas. Funny. I see this in California a lot, but
these days what bothers me most are the people doing 80-90 MPH in the
#3 or #4 slow
lane,
taking advantage of the gaps between semi-trucks to pass on the right.
Dangerous as heck - you aren't looking for them and suddenly they are,
zipping in from the right, squeezing their thirteen foot car into a
fifteen foot gap between you and a truck. Nasty.
Thursday
- up north. Beautiful weather. Okay drive.
Interesting: Google
Sky. I
thought of something like this years ago, including
the different spectral bands. Never did anything about it of course. I
imagine it's a pretty common idea, a virtual sky. Actually I envisioned
it as a globe of many (virtual) layers. I wonder if Google Sky can
operate in that 3D mode.
Apropos of that: I wonder how Google makes money? Not enough to look it
up, but I have
to wonder - how can you make money with a search engine and email and
coolish, free, web applications?
Maybe you can't. Maybe it's all a scam. After all, DadHacker
says that any company with a 'campus' is doomed. But you have to take
that with a grain of salt: he progams in Emacs as
opposed to the one true
editor: vi.
Wednesday 19 March 2008
Wednesday
- keeping busy. Since my help is taking the rest of the week off I
thought I'd do the same. Get a jump on traffic up to the bay area. So
I'll take off Thursday and Friday.
Stupidly I didn't pack before heading out east of Fillmore for work, so
I had to drive west
all the way back to Ventura to get my stuff, about 25 miles, then east
again. So about an extra two and a half gallons of gas, at $3.50 or so,
and an
hours commute time. But it did let me skip the worst of rush hour
traffic. I
took a shower, cleaned up the room, ate, downloaded some data, and so
on.
Tuesday 18 March 2008
Tuesday
- back at work, gorgeous weather. It's nice to be outside in such balmy
conditions. It's nice to start the day with a cup of hot coffee and
buttered bagel - I feel almost human by the time work starts. Almost. I
was out east of Santa Paula now, in the orchards.
I see that Arthur
C. Clarke has died.
Damm. He was a favorite. Heinlein, Asimov
and Clarke were the "Big 3" of science fiction, and they are all gone
now. Of the second tier, Dickson's gone, as are Anderson and Norton.
Pournelle is sick. So it goes, I suppose.
I recall that in 'Tales
from the White Hart' he had a story about
noise cancellation. I was going to bring that up in connection with my
noise canceling headphones that I got for Christmas, but I don't think
I did. That would have been the Harry Purvis story 'Silence
Please', I'm guessing.
Monday 17 March 2008
Monday
- thinking about the picture of the week. It occurs to me that I start
work before the field laborers, and quit work long after they've gone
home.
Back at work. I unloaded everything Sunday night but the desk myself,
and even installed the carpet. Sadly it's 1"" short in the 10'
direction. Not that I care that much. In the evening my friend Tim
helped me lug the beast of a desk into the house. It's small, only 5'
long, but made of steel.
Sunday 16 March 2008
Sunday
- tomorrow is my sixth blogiverary. I started everything off with a post
about my cat.
The rap on bloggers is, of course, that the write incessantly about
their cats while sitting in pajama's, and there's a germ of truth in
that.
Today - as then - it is windy and cold. Riley is outside, chasing the
leaves as they blow across the yard. Phoebe is lurking about, looking
for a particularly unwary or slow bird - hope springs eternal in a cats
mind. Each occasionally runs inside, frightened by some noise or just
to get warm. I'm blogging, sipping a cup of coffee, wearing my warm
slippers, though not pajama's.
I've cut the carpet to size, actually about an inch short in
each
direction. It was 12x12, I needed 10x11, I cut it short because of
moldings and such. Folded over it fits in the Explorer (barely). Along
with the
desk and rest of the gear it makes quite a load.
It's down to Ventura tonight, I want to unload as much as possible
before work tomorrow.
