When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic, 1986
September 27, 2010
QotD: Explorers and translation
September 23, 2010
xkcd on a useful, but unlikely, public service agency
Meh. Civ V isn’t that addictive . . . is it really 2am?
I received my copy of Civilization V from Amazon.ca yesterday, but I was in town all evening, so I didn’t sit down to start installing it until 10:30. I figured I could install it, twiddle about with the new UI, and still get to sleep by midnight. I probably could have, except you can’t play Civ V without registering an account with Steam. After creating the account, you apparently have to download the whole game (no idea why, as there’s a DVD-ROM in the package), and because I was online at peak hour for west coast gamers, the connection speed left more than a bit to be desired.
At around 11:30, the game finished downloading and I was able to actually start. “Oh,” I said to myself, “they’ve included tutorials. That’s nice of them. I guess that’ll cover the changed UI elements. I’ll try ’em.” I spent the next two hours just playing the tutorial scenarios.
It certainly does have the “gotta play just one more turn” thing down pat. It’ll do nicely to cover the gap until Guild Wars 2 is released.
September 19, 2010
Here’s something for the font geek in your life
September 18, 2010
A day at the range
Someone at Elizabeth’s office organized a trip to the Orono Fish & Hunt Club to allow employees and family members to try shooting various weapons. Victor (who’s home from Trent this weekend) and I went with the group for a bit of fun plinking. The line-up was pretty long and slow for the first portion (.22 rifle and .22 pistol), but after that, the wait to try other weapons was much shorter. It was a a lot of fun.
Victor found the .22s a bit tame, but really enjoyed firing the Lee Enfield (.303) and the M-14 (.308). I took a few pictures, but safety required only shooters and coaches on the line, so they’re all from behind the shooting zone.
This is Victor firing a Lee Enfield
This is just a split second after he fired the M-14, as the rifle recoils.
September 17, 2010
September 15, 2010
Recognize your password?
Password Authentication Tag Cloud
Earlier posts on this topic: Passwords and the average user, More on passwords, And yet more on passwords, and Practically speaking, the end is in sight for passwords.
H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.
September 10, 2010
More on that list of tools you don’t need
Jon, my former virtual landlord, wanted to respond to this post:
Your post — here — is amusing. I am guessing, though, that you and Sippican Cottage just don’t do certain things around the house. Taking SC’s easy ones . . .
Sledgehammer — I use mine to set stakes around trees and shrubs.
Center Punch — You don’t need the one shown in the Pop Crap article (which has a shank similar to that of a cold chisel, which makes me think the one they show there is for masonry work), but a centre punch is helpful for drilling. I punch the centres of all my drilled holes, even those that I’m doing on the drill press. I also use a centre punch when mounting hardware, such as hinges, to wood.
Combination wrench — I guess you guys don’t do any plumbing, or anything with bolts that go completely through an object. You can’t reach everything with a socket — a socket will not undo the nut on a toilet’s feed pipe (unless, of couse, you break away the toilet’s tank so that you can get to the nut from the top). And you sometimes need to hold the bolt head in place while you crank on the nut with a socket. I have a good set of combination wrenches and use them a lot on our bikes and playground equipment. I also have a cheap set that came with my socket set that’s convenient to have with the sockets, but I don’t think they will stand up to prolonged use. The socket set itself is an interesting item that would make Sippican Cottage laugh out loud: it’s a 300-some-odd-piece set with 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ drives and sockets. I see the need for 1/4″ and 3/8″ and use both frequently. If I ever need to install industrial-grade light standards or build a highway overpass, I guess the 1/2″ set will come in handy.
But hey — it was on sale!
Jigsaw — Depends on what you are doing. I use mine to rough out stuff that I am going to finish with a template on the router table. If I had a bandsaw, I’d use that instead. I did not have $700 to drop on a bandsaw, so I bought this $50 item instead.
Tin Snips — you need these if you do home repairs involving metal. I’ve used mine to repair or replace exhaust vents, install anti-bird mesh in said vents, replace the clothes dryer exhaust tubing, and to do repairs to aluminum downspouts. I’ve also used them to open those freakin’ polycarbonate clamshell packages that all electronics and toys seem to come in. They are the only way I can get into those things without slicing up my hands on the packaging.
Machinist Vise — this is the only vise I have at the moment. A real woodworker may not need one of these, but I have found mine to be handy.
I wonder how many bench planes Sippican Cottage has . . .
Humph.
As Gerard Vanderleun points out in the comments to the original Sippican Cottage post, “I love this fisking more than I love the dream of an Obama recall. It gets worse since Yahoo evidently chopped this down from the original 50 by Logan. That’s a schmo at the beginning and a know-nothing Yahoo intern chopping at the end. De-licious.
September 9, 2010
Books aren’t a problem . . . I could stop any time . . .
I think I need to build more bookshelves.
September 8, 2010
Ignoring the “don’t know” faction
Michael Blastland thinks there’s a serious issue with how pollsters do their work:
I don’t know about you, but quite often there seems to me only one sensible answer the questions posed in these attempts to canvass opinion: I don’t know.
But that’s not really what I mean. What I really mean is: “it depends”. And for that reason, I might not answer.
Yet the standard way for pollsters to treat people like me is to ignore them.
“Excluding don’t-knows and no answers” say the reports, before telling us that most of us think we should or shouldn’t do this or that. It’s as if the “don’t knows” haven’t been paying attention while the “no answers” don’t care.
Strip out the apathetic and the ignorant and see what’s left, they seem to say.
But isn’t it at least arguable that we’ve thought about it and decided uncertainty is the best response?
Lots of issues don’t fall into easily classified answers, and pollsters often take the easy way out and provide one or two obvious answers (usually tailored to the interests of the commissioning organization, of course), and leave people with a more nuanced view out of the equation.
September 7, 2010
A “terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs”
I’m not much of a woodworker, so I don’t quite have the necessary gravitas to manage a proper takedown like SippicanCottage:
It’s a shameful pleasure of mine, I admit it. I love to read lists of tools randomly drawn from a Home Depot flyer, written by people that can’t write, aimed at people that don’t make anything but reservations. Popular Mechanics doesn’t disappoint with their: Tools Everyone Should Own. It’s a terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs, written in the breathless prose usually reserved for paperbacks with pictures of Fabio on their cover and the tears of countless overweight data entry clerks dappling the pages.
OK, first, let’s take care of the easy stuff:
- Sledgehammer – You don’t need that
- Center Punch – You don’t need that
- Combination wrench – Singular? Never mind. The item just before it is a socket wrench set. You don’t need both. And they put an adjustable wrench on the list, too. How many nuts you got, Willis? Are they all loose?
- Jigsaw – You don’t need that. And Jig Saw is two words.
- Tin Snips -You don’t need those
- Machinist Vise – You don’t need one of those
Down to fourteen.
Hmmm. What about a slightly more serious look at the PM list? Here’s my barely informed views on the suggestions:
- Sledgehammer. I’ve got one. I bought it for one specific job. I’ve only ever used it for that one job. Should have borrowed one from the neighbours.
- Center Punch. I’ve got one. Inherited it from my late father-in-law’s toolkit. Never used it.
- Putty Knife. I’ve got a few. Used occasionally for filling voids in plywood.
- Safety Glasses. SC is right: this isn’t a tool, but you should definitely use them whenever you’re waving powertools around.
- Adjustable Wrench. Got a few, mostly inherited. Occasionally used, but I could get by with fewer.
- Pipe Wrench. Got one, also inherited. Never used it.
- Socket Wrench Set. I have both metric and Imperial flavours. Used fairly frequently (far more than I thought when I first bought a cheap set at Canadian Tire). SC is right that if you’ve got a socket set, you should have few uses for adjustable wrenches.
- Combination Wrench. I have several, unmatched, in various states of rust/paint/corrosion. All inherited, and rarely used.
- Jigsaw. One of the first power tools I bought. Rarely used once I bought a table saw.
- Crosscut Saw. Once I used a Japanese saw, I scrapped all my “traditional” western saws. Cutting on the pull stroke allows a much thinner blade, and better control in use.
- Snips. I have some general purpose snips. They’re just oversized scissors, and not used very often in my shop. Probably more useful if you do metalwork.
- Needle-Nose Pliers. Yeah, okay, you probably need these.
- Power Drill. Yes, you need this one too. Don’t go for the biggest and best: at heart, these are simple tools and you don’t need too many “features”. Variable speed and a “pilot light” are probably all 98% ever use in the way of extras. More battery power also means more weight: unless you want the exercise, don’t go bigger than you can comfortably lift and hold without wobble or shake.
- Drill Bits. I don’t know why they listed this separately: what good is your power drill without drill bits?
- Circular Saw. I’ve got one, and use it for breaking down plywood panels pretty much exclusively (I can’t get full 4’x8′ panels down the basement stairs). If you have a table saw, you won’t use your circular saw as often.
- Measuring Tape. Yes, you need one. Get a good one. A metal case is probably better for general use, because it’s one tool that everyone seems to drop off the workbench every now and again.
- Hammer. Yes, you need one, but you won’t use it as often as you expect.
- Machinist Vise. No, you don’t need one, unless you’re doing metal work. I have one — bought on sale several years ago — it’s still in its original packaging.
- Multibit Screwdriver. Yes. Get a good one, if you can: you’ll use it a lot.
- Extension Cord. Once again, not really a tool, but do get a heavy duty cord for running your power tool away from the outlet: don’t use cheap household extension cords for this.
H/T to American Digest for the link.
Another reason we don’t think we’re as fat as we really are
It’s because our clothes are lying to us:
. . . I immediately went across the street, bought a tailor’s measuring tape, and trudged from shop to shop, trying on various brands’ casual dress pants. It took just two hours to tear my self-esteem to smithereens and raise some serious questions about what I later leaned is called “vanity sizing.”
Your pants have been deceiving you for years. And the lies are compounding:
H/T to Mark Frauenfelder for the link.
September 6, 2010
Fifteen albums/fifteen minutes
I got tagged with this Facebook meme by David Stamper a little while ago, but I’m only now just getting around to addressing it. Here’s the description I was sent:
The rules: Do this if it’s fun. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what albums you choose.
So, because I’m too lazy to do it in Facebook, I’m doing it here (eventually, through the magic of Twitter, the link’ll appear in Facebook anyway). Roughly in chronological order:
- Rush, A Farewell to Kings
- Al Stewart, Past, Present & Future
- Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV
- The Alan Parsons Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination
- Dire Straits, Dire Straits
- Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
- Neil Young, Live Rust
- Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
- King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
- Kitaro, Silk Road
- Stan Rogers, Northwest Passage
- Dead Can Dance, The Serpent’s Egg
- The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
- John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
- Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
I had to take it in chronological order to limit it to only fifteen, so no really recent stuff . . . but perhaps that’s fair as it’ll take time to show if more recent stuff will hold up to long-term listening. Not quite making it onto the list was Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis & Gil Evans.
September 1, 2010
Another coping strategy for the aging demographics of Japan?
I don’t normally like to point my finger and sneer at others, but it’s hard to avoid an overwhelming feeling to do that here:
Since the marriage rate among Japan’s shrinking population is falling and with many of the country’s remaining lovebirds heading for Hawaii or Australia’s Gold Coast, Atami had to do something. It is trying to attract single men — and their handheld devices.
In the first month of the city’s promotional campaign launched July 10, more than 1,500 male fans of the Japanese dating-simulation game LovePlus+ have flocked to Atami for a romantic date with their videogame character girlfriends.
The men are real. The girls are cartoon characters on a screen. The trips are actual, can be expensive and aim to re-create the virtual weekend outing featured in the game, a product of Konami Corp. played on Nintendo Co.’s DS videogame system.
That part is disturbing enough, but it gets more creepy:
“Atami has always been a romantic place, but it is now a romantic place for a modern generation,” says Sakae Saito, Atami’s mayor.
Love Plus+ re-creates the experience of an adolescent romance. The goal isn’t just to get the girl but to maintain a relationship with her.
After choosing one of three female characters — goodie-goodie Manaka, sassy Rinko or big-sister type Nene — to be a steady girlfriend, the player taps a stylus on the DS touch-screen in order to walk hand-in-hand to school, exchange flirtatious text messages and even meet in the school courtyard for a little afternoon kiss. Using the device’s built-in microphone, the player can carry on sweet, albeit mundane, conversations.
This will really boost Japan’s chances of retaining the “Weirdest country on Earth” title again for 2010. Korea will really have to work hard to overtake this new Japanese initiative.