The corpus clock

Three replies to things I saw today on Planet Debian on blogs of people that don’t have fully-working web comment systems:-

1. Professional Slide Installer (usual buggy blogger.com CAPTCHA) - yes, they exist. My village’s council sometimes hires them. I think they’re carpenters who have specialised. There are also professional slide inspectors (well, childrens’ play area safety inspectors, but professional slide inspector sounds cooler).
2. Internet Speed Hype (usual buggy wordpress kind-a captcha) - ThePhone.Coop (UK) doesn’t cap, but charges extra if you go over your subscription amount. We have a monitoring system that lets you check your usage fairly easily and set up email alerts when your prepaid amount is almost used up. (I work for agent AG_471 of ThePhone.Coop but I think I’d like them anyway.)
3. home of the madduck/ blog/ Recovering a lost default route (site under construction - see bottom of page) - I was told by a very wise man to always start a delayed reboot (shutdown -r +5) before messing with anything to do with the networking on a remote machine.

So the Google SF office now has a slide. Unfortunatly, this slide is not well tuned. So our discussion over dinner was based around the question: Do professional slide installers exist? If they do, are there professional slide testers? Can I be one?

A while ago I started using Google Reader. Reader has a nice social feature where you can share articles with your friends. This is nicer than posted items in an activity stream since you don't have to click on anything, the article is right there. Anyway, I got a shared item in my stream of articles today with the second sentence as "She somehow got her own claw stuck into her paw.". Then it struck me, I've heard this story before. My dinner guests last week told this same story. So it seems I've found Michelle's blog. Thanks Tony.

Mark is in town visiting after spending this last year at CMU. While here, he graciously organized a hiking trip to Sequoia National Park. We did around 20 miles over two days, 12 of which with full packs, and over 4000ft of climbing with full packs. The consequence of this work was that my old trusty camping backpack finally broke. The duct tape came loose, my sweat helped, and the left shoulder strap broke. This pack has lasted around 15 years, so it has done its job. Now is probably time for a new one.

My other bit of exercise was riding home from the tenderloin without a seat on my bike. Someone managed to get the seat, and post, off of my bike while it was locked up . Normally riding without a seat should be challenging, but not too bad. Unfortunatly, my bike is a fixie and I had clipless pedals and shoes with me today. I learned after the first block that I shouldn't clip in since it is very hard to clip out while pedalling and standing up. I also had a down hill section that was very scary. It turns out if you have your butt too far back on the bike that it becomes wobbly.

I've always thought Canada was overpopulated. I finally have evidence to support that. Canada has a higher population density than Iceland (and Australia)!

So TV has finally come to the browser. The current incarnation that I'm playing with is Hulu. Hulu has two seasons of babylon 5, so that's what I have been watching. The annoying part of Hulu is that even after it has buffered the video, it will still pause during play back if a network connection is lost. My guess is that they have a set of pings they send back to ensure you are still watching. If a ping has not been acked in so long, then a synchronous ping will be send which blocks playback until the video can continue.

So apparently we hit $138/barrel on oil futures on Friday. Reading a CBC Post on the subject I think there are a couple interesting quotes:

Matt Simmons, chairman of an energy financing company in Houston, believes oil prices are still too low. He told CBC News there are "very strong signs" that the global supply of crude oil has leveled out and is probably now in a gentle decline.

Simmons said he finds it interesting that so many people blame speculators and a weak U.S. dollar for rising prices. "These same lame excuses have been going on for the last nine years, since [the price of oil] has gone up 13-fold," he said

I commented earlier that I'm looking forward to $10/litre (The CBC article shows petrol in Montr al at $1.40). A number of commenters brought up economic accessibility - which is a real concern. So, dear lazyweb: I remember seeing once that there were orgs doing carbon offsets by going into low-income areas and doing volunteer work on houses to fix up insulation, replace aging furnaces and major appliances. I haven't been able to find a reference to it again, though. Given that $10/litre seems inevitable (Heya Brits! Any of you still driving cars at ~ 1.15 according to the Daily Mail), what do we do to prepare for it? We got Angie's bike up and running yesterday, and she went to her day's visits that way. I'm finally cleared to ride a bike, but am not yet up to tackling Rengstorff. I'm practicing by biking around the campus at work and getting used to the changes in my body. The biggest disappointment in going back to Vancouver is just the apathy about smog and fuel consumption there. We saw a total of 2 Prius' (Prii?) on the road across the entire 12 days versus a half-dozen Hummers. I remember in the early 90's being downtown and everyone being shocked when there was a bit of brown haze in the air around the Sears Tower (Sorry, I can never remember WTH it's called now). Now the city is not only permanently like that, but people just expect it to get worse without any real feeling that they could do anything about it. I find myself starting to think again about hacking and what differences I can make. It's unexpected but logical that efficiency results in greater consumption: You can afford to do more, and have time to do more. Is the trick, then, to develop something efficient that takes up time? (Should I work on a text adventure?) Or perhaps the answer is to get away from computers for entertainment. Jim Morrison (Phython) and I have been talking about taking up bagpipes as a fun pre-work activity in the field by the office. But now he's moved to the San Francisco office. Anyone else at in Mountain View interested? =)

So there are three things people should know about stalking on the internet.
1) Every Canadian is on facebook.
2) Every Brazilian is on Orkut (pronouced or-ku-chi)
3) Whoever is left is probably found through a quick google search. Youtube content does help with this.

Two things have been bothering me for a while:
1) Titles that are links. For example my stupid canvassers post has the title linking to the same page. This is especially annoying on link filled news pages since the title should be the only thing to click on to get focus into the browser windows.
2) Pages that refresh themselves. This annoys me because it forces me to stop reading an article as I am trying to read it. It is also annoying since any embedded youtube videos stop downloading, stop playing, and lose my place in the video.

So some canvassers came by my apartment building. They tried ringing a bunch of door bells and someone eventually let them in. They went door to door and tried to knocked on every door.

I leave my apartment door open when I am home, so if anyone wants to visit they know they are welcome. This seemed to confuse the canvassers as they couldn't find apartment 6, which is across from apartment 5, below apartment 8 and above apartment 4. They even joked that the building may not have an apartment 6.

I woke up saturday morning with a pain around my stomach, and rather nauseous. After puking for a number of rounds and passing out each round of puking (Thanks for the help Sarah), Sarah suggested we stop by the emergency room to see why I would be passing out, so we did.

Well, I finally got out of the hospital today. I ended up having my appendix removed since it was causing problems and seemed to be why I was puking on saturday. To verify that I was doing well enough to go home from the hospital I had to do two things:
1) Fart
2) Take a dump

Now, if this could be the exit criteria for other things in life, then life would be very good. The other part of this is that I get to feel proud of myself for every fart this week!

So qwerty was designed to avoid having two keys beside each other typed in a row. This was to avoid jamming keyboards. Dvorak decided this wasn't a useful design goal, so made his own keyboard. Anyway, this criteria to avoid jamming also makes qwerty better for small keyboards, since the jamming is now done between my fingers instead of the keys on a typewriter.

The OpenCores website is down :(

It has been a while since I changed the template I used for blogger. Mostly since I had a couple minor things on my page, I didn't want to remove. However, I changed to using the "Layout" instead of a template, and I must say, I am rather impressed. It is now every easy to change the layout of my blog. So that I am not too positive about Google (it is a fun place to work :), the "Google Profile" available through reader sucks. If my friend adds something with a feed to her profile, it doesn't get automatically added to my subscriptions.

I don't think any of these are mine, but this needs to be published to the general public (at least until it rests on AlumNit).

Poo Alliterations
- The Earl of Excrement
- The Duke of Dung
- The Prince of Poop
- The Sultan of Shit
- The Father of Feces
- The Matriarch of Merde
- The Steward of Stink
- The Dignitary of Dangleberries
- The Grand Poohbah of Grand Poo
- The Tyrant of Turd
- The Shogun of Scheisse
- The Baron of Bowels
- The Cardinal of Crap
- The Director of Dump
- The Surveyor of Stool
- The Lord of the Log
- The Crown Prince of Cow Patties
- The Royal Archbishop of Road Apples
- The Duchess of Droppings
- The Princess of Poodie
- The Legionnaire of Loaf
- The Supervisor of Stinkers
- The Pharaoh of Floaters
- The Magnate of Manure
- The Tycoon of TCPDumps
- The Czar of Czesspools
- The Mogul of Bowel Movements
- The Ruler of the Runs
- The Dean of Diarrhea
- The Royal Ringleader of Rump Raisins
- The Denizen of Doo-doo
- The Emperor of Evacuations
- The Headmaster of Horrible Odors
- The Titan of the Trots
- The King of Klingons
- The Big Boss of Bum Beans
- The Taskmaster of Turtleheads
- The Supervising Sovereign of Sewer Serpents
- The Colonel of Colon Cobras
- The Nobleman of Number Two
- The Top Dog of Toilet Twinkies
- The Kingpin of Keester Cakes
- The Shepherd of Sea Pickles
- The Head Navigator of Heinie Nuggets
- Rectal Representative
- The Commander of Cow Pie
- The First Mate of Fecal Matter
- The Creator of Cloth Touchers
- The Protector of Porcelan
- The Theologian of the Throne
- The God of Grunts
- The Small Insignificant Yodeling President of Shit in your Pants
- The Diaper Destroyer
- The Loader of Loincloths
- The Pontiff of Plum Pudding
- The Daiymo of Dysentery
- The Master of Montezuma's revenge
- The Squire of Squirts
- The [Weaver] of [WvLog]s
- The Primary Contact of Pudding Cookies
- The Best Producer of Brown Puddles
- The Senior Partner of Steaming Piles
- The Fine Baker of Fudge Brownies
- The Sheriff of Stench
- The Don of the Deuce
- The Torrid Putrid Tainted Pervert of Two-Ply Toilet Paper
- The Sacred Monarch of Skid Marks
- The Main Scientist of Microfeceological Studies
- The G.I. Joe of Gastro Intestinal Journeys
- The Premier of Polyps
- The Brigadier General of Bedpan Gold
- The Plunger Pilot
- The Specialist of Splashers
- The Foreman of Fake Farts
- The Ambassador's Under-Secretary of Astounding Unearthly Scents
- The Old Man and the Sea of Odiferous Monsters in the Sink
- The Bafflingly Blunt and Blasphemous Bearer of Big Bad Beastly Booty Burdens
- The Crisp Pungence of Chain Pooping
- The Goddess of Groundhogging
- The Burly Bobby's Brief Battle with Brim Blasting Bowel Bombs
- The Nasty Neighbour's Noisy and Nefarious Neglect of Normal Nasal Niceties
- The Judge Jury and Executor of Jolly Jumper Excrement
- The Forwarder of the Forwarded
- The Wizard of the Water-closet
- The Grunting Lobber of Great Logs
- The Annoyingly Arrogant Architect of Awful and Abhorrent yet Amazingly Aerodynamic Anal Atrocities
- The Dark, Dangerous and Delusional Dealer of Death-Defying Doses of Disturbingly Decadent Dung
- The Shakespeare of Sinfully Smelly and Supremely Scary Scripture with Soggy Stains and Screaming Splashes
- The Wise but Weakened Warlord Whose Willful Wrath Was Wholly Wrought With Wicked and Wretched Winds from Within
- The Languid and Lackluster Legend of the Little Log from the Loo and its Lavish Life of Luxury in a Lasagna
- The Kahuna of Kaka
- The Emergency Evacuator of Enraged Entrails
- The Squire of Sultry Stinknuggets
- The Deadening Discomfort of a Dearth of Dumps
- The Far From Favourable Fragrance of Four Fragments of Fantastically Fresh Feces
- The Principal of Prodigiously Putrid Pellets
- The Markedly Morose Maintenance of Maniacally Mounded Midden Movements and Mostly Meaty Meals Mysteriously Made Mushy
- The Crass and Cranky Coroner Connecting Clues Concerning a Cornucopia of Casualties Caused by a Crude Cluster of Completely Contemptible Colon Concoctions
- The Thinking Thoughts of a Thinker
- The Horrible, Hubristic Heathen Hoarding Hoary Humps of Hideousness Hailing from His Huge Hairy Heinie in His Harmfully Heady Hovel
- Inane Writings on Irritated Wreathing of the Incubator of Wrath
- That Special Numbness from Sniffing Noodled Stink Nougat
- The Moral Sanctity of the Mystery Shit
- The Ornery Opressor's Opulent Outpost Overseeing the Ordinary Occupants' Outrageous and Ongoing Observance Of an Occasional but Offensive Orgy Of Offal
- The Rector of Relief
- The Rectal Regurgitator
- The Shit Squat
- The Smelly Surprise
- The World Wide Wisdom
- The Slayer Supreme of System Shock

So I seem to watch a lot of movies now. First is the Abigail Breslin trio. First, No Reservations & the Ultimate Gift. I watch these on airplanes between Brazil and Canada. In both Abigail plays some disadvantaged girl who hooks up her mother figure with a random guy who shows up in the mother figures life. The Ultimate Gift is more about teaching us good values in life than the mother figure getting laid. So given this caveat, let's compare the box office revenues. No Reservations: $92,572,766; Ultimate Gift: $3,438,735. Oh, I also saw Little Miss Sunshine. It was cute, but I don't think I appreciated as much as the people who recommended it to me.

Next up is The Golden Compass and The Big Hit. The Golden Compass had a horribly done evil mother character and watched like someone playing an RPG where they don't screw up and you don't have to think. So, don't both. As for The Big Hit, it is cheesy, but it is supposed to be. Grab some guys, grab some beers and sit back and enjoy.

So the New York Times had a nice article about all the bars in BH. One of these many bars is even cooler. Sete Cumes has a climbing wall in the bar that is available for use during the week when the bar wouldn't have as many customers anyway.

Anyway, it's time for me to go climbing.

When I was back in Canada last we got a nice rain storm while driving to see Kevin, his wife and little son Tank. Tonight in Belo Horizonte our football game was cancelled because of rain. The rain really was something, the thunder was fantastics, a few of the strikes were big enough to make me drunk.

Oh, other good thing, I have internet in the Hotel now.

I got a little older yesterday. I'm 26 now. It was a fun day. It started out by going to the Federal Police to get my temporary id. The agents who register foreigners are on strike for the last week or so, but there was someone there dealing with the registration. So my name got put in a big book and I've got a piece of paper that will let me back into the country next week.

Now for the actual birthday. A bunch of use went out to a place called Pinguin (yes, Penguin in Portuguese). We had some chopp, some very good garlic bread. Then since it was my birthday we got a cotton candy cake, and a nice little Penguin!