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June 26, 2007
Buttle? Tuttle?
Somewhere in London, a Rob Buttle is about to get a £1,484,765 bill for unpaid congestion charges (the BBC bia BoingBoing:
"The majority of missions pay the congestion charge on time and do not incur fines. We also wrote to all missions owing over £1,000 in fines urging them to settle their debts with Transport for London."The US embassy - along with many others - has refused to pay the congestion fee on the grounds that it is tax; and therefore diplomats are exempt from paying it.
It has led to stinging criticism from London mayor Ken Livingstone, who branded US ambassador Robert Tuttle a "venal little crook" for his refusal to pay.
It saddens me that neither BoingBoing nor the Freakonomics blog took the Brazil joke.
Posted by griffjon at 08:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 25, 2007
Purpled Salmon
Also, I sat down to cook up some dinner. The goal: tame my basil plant that's turning into a small bush and occupying more and more of my not-that-big kitchen. So - pesto it is. But what to go with the pesto? Noodles seem to be too easy, heavy, and obvious. So some pesto-encrusted salmon. Also, I had some shitake mushrooms that needed cooking, and bought some fresh asparagus at the farmer's market this morning. I reduced some syrah with the mushrooms, because shitakes sauteed in wine = the shiznizzle. I poured the remaining reduction over the salmon, and wrapped the asparagus with some turkey bacon.
Damn.
Posted by griffjon at 12:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How does your garden grow?
So midway through the suck that we call spring semester I started a small garden (it was supposed to be bigger, but I never got around to renting a tiller and there's only so much digging one guy can do to go from rocky and full of random filldirt junk to nice garden-bed).
Despite the soil sucking (with some help from some yard mulch), I got lucky with some insanely excellent tomato vines which are breaking my stakes with the weight of their frickin' huge tomatoes. My habaneros sprouted like crazy, had some problems with their transplanting, but are back and happy now (my jalapenos never sprouted). The squash as evident from the photos are going gangbuster. There's a potato plant hidden in the middle of there somewhere.
Posted by griffjon at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 19, 2007
Adobe and Firefox
I just updated Adobe Reader to 8.0 - and Adobe used Firefox's addon infrastructure to install the software. That's nice, is all.
Posted by griffjon at 02:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2007
On Startup
So, in my previous post I was lamenting the number of programs that start at boot. I've ruthelessly disabled the Quicktime/iTunes startup, winamp's agent, MSN messenger, and all those annoying TSR and update-checkers. I'm looking forward to being competent enough with Linux to drop windows altogether and never have to deal with its craptastic updating ever again (in most Linux versions, updating all the software on your system is a few easy clicks/commands!)
Anyhow. What DO I still let run amok at startup?
- Cygwin + SSHD - this gives me Linux like abilities to connect to my computer via SSH and transfer files/start and end programs, and what not. It pairs well with:
- MyEnTunnel - which maintains an SSH tunnel between my laptop and my webserver for secure email and remote access to cygwin
- A Backup monitor/program - 'cuz I like having those weekly incremental backups without having to worry about it.
- I8kFanGui - manages my fan speeds and CPU temperature, which gets around my thermistor problem
- VNC - because sometimes, SSH isn't enough with Windows. I lock this down to the local network only, though
- An IR remote control daemon - because you can't have enough ways to remotely control your computer (this is primarily for media control, though my winamp now has a sleek web interface.
- AVG - AntiVirus from Grisoft - one of the best and least-intrusive anti-virus programs out there
Posted by griffjon at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The continued tribulations of my Inspiron 8200
My poor Dell 8200 - it was a lemon from the start. I've manually replaced the motherboard fans - three times, the CD/DVD drive more times than that (and it still sucks), and had to muck with the video data cable for the monitor when it started giving out. I can only say, thank god for sites like Parts-People, where you can buy replacement parts for Dells, cheaper, and with less hassle, than you can at Dell. This Inspiron reminded me to never ever buy a laptop from Dell outside of their Latitude line. I've seen Lats run over by SUVs and survive, where my Inspiron fails doing day-to-day activities.
Anyhow. I was having all the symptoms of another fan breakdown - the CPU never going into overdrive, but the fans always trying to run. Unusually, they were running even when my CPU was not all that hot (45C), and - more mysterious - both were running at reasonable RPMs, so obviously they were functioning fine. Some googling about turned up this thread which has seemingly proven correct - the thermistor circuit has gone haywire, causing my computer to think it's constantly overheating (thus, running the fans constantly and not speeding up, even when it really needs to). So now I have yet another program running in my system tray (which offends my geek-minimalist sensibilities), but my computer's managing better and staying within a reasonable temperature range. Woot.
Posted by griffjon at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 14, 2007
More terrorism because of liquids
Of course, the real terrorists here seem to be the TSA staff who fly off the handle because of a sippy cup with water in it. This security theater has really got to stop.
I explained that the sippy cup water was filtered tap water. The sippy cup was seized as my son was pointing and crying for his cup. I asked if I could drink the water to get the cup back, and was advised that I would have to leave security and come back through with an empty cup in order to retain the cup. As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation."At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. I asked to call back my fiancé, who I could still see from afar, waiting for us to clear security, to watch my son while I was being detained, and the officer threatened to arrest me if I moved. So I yelled past security to get the attention of my fiancé.
"I was ordered to apologize for the spilled water, and again threatened arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest while detained, and while three other police officers were called to the scene of the mother with the 19 month old. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held against my will. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologized to the officer and she continued to detain me despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I 'intentionally spilled the water!'"
Posted by griffjon at 03:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 04, 2007
Serious Research
Finally, a
a game theoretic analysis of leaving the toilet seat down:
In this paper, we internalize the cost of yelling and model the conflict as a non-cooperative game between two species, males and females.We find that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down is inefficient. However, to our dismay, we also find that the social norm of always leaving the toilet seat down after use is not only a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies but is also trembling-hand perfect. So, we can complain all we like, but this norm is not likely to go away.All hope is not lost though. An important issue regarding social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare. Are they society’s response to market failures? One such norm is tipping for service quality. Azar (2003) has shown that the norm of tipping increases social welfare. In this paper, we show conclusively that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down after use decreases welfare and by doing that we hope to convince the reader that social norms are not always welfare enhancing. Hence, there is a case for scientifically examining social norms and educating the masses about the fallacy of following social norms blindly.
Posted by griffjon at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack