Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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trekmath

I wouldn't feel too sorry for Bones and Scotty.
If you do the math, they were already half-way through their lives when they started on Trek.
I feel more for Wes, who was just starting out when he got caught up in the whirlwind.

I didn't realize that the Star Trek crews are for the most part, how shall I put it... middle aged.

All actor's actual ages at time of series start according to IMDB.

Star Trek (1966)
Kirk - 35
Spock - 35
Bones - 46
Scotty - 46

Next Generation (1987)
Picard - 47
Ricker - 35
Data - 38
Worf - 35
Dr. Crusher - 38
LaForge - 30
Wes - 15

Deep Space 9 (1993)
Sisko - 45
Odo - 53

Voyager (1995)
Janeway - 40

Enterprise (2001)
Archer - 47
Dr. Phlox - 41
T'Pol - 26 posted by Richard at 11:13 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

the temperature of our discontent

When it's boiling hot out, Clio Godkewitsch sometimes arrives at her office in the Cadillac Fairview tower and turns on the space heater under her desk.

...

Don't run your dishwasher during the day, authorities advise. Lower the thermostat. Keep your curtains drawn. In all that energy-saving advice, they forgot one thing: Don't switch on that space heater.

...

In Ottawa, Andrea Girones, a lawyer at a high-tech firm, said she and her colleagues have learned to keep company-issued fleece jackets handy. Yesterday morning, in a freezing board room, Ms. Girones tossed her fleece jacket over her T-shirt and light blue cotton skirt. It didn't exactly match her flip-flops, but she explained, "We're a business-casual building."

Women turn up heat to beat the freeze

"How did you burn up all the earth?" future generations will ask.

Well, when it was hot out, we made it cold inside, we will explain,
err except inside we also had things that were hot,
so we let our appliances fight it out.

"You destroyed the earth so that your appliances could fight?"

Err, yes. Was that not in order? posted by Richard at 10:37 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

hypey potter

I have read lots
and lots and lots
of SF and Fantasy.

So the mass culture mania of Harry Potter mystifies me.
Because it is a fairly genre fantasy.

(I have mentioned this before but I don't have time to dig up links at the moment.)

I therefore liked Darren Barefoot's anti-Harry screed. posted by Richard at 07:48 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

your own special RHEL

I tried to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 4U1 without X Windows.
Wow, did that not work.
Instead, it installed X Windows anyway, but with KDE, and it didn't run the setup agent, so it just sat there with a KDE login screen.

Not bad, you might think, except whenever I tried to login it said "root login not permitted". And there were no other accounts created, because it's the setup agent that creates the first non-root account.

So when I reinstalled, I let it choose all the X Gnomey stuff it wanted. Then it was happy. posted by Richard at 07:04 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

melting meltdown

oh my god it was hot in Ottawa yesterday
31° with humidex to 43°

We "only" used something like 26,100 MW of power, so we didn't set a new record.
Of course, the record is just 26,160 MW, and was set last week.

The IESO would like you, voluntarily, to use less power.
ahahaha
yeah, voluntary measures work great

The power situation looks something like this (there was no warning in 2004, according to the archive):

* IESO Appeals for Reduced Electricity Consumption as Hot Weather Strains System (July 18, 2005 7:00 a.m. EST)

* IESO Looks for Public Assistance to Help Meet Expected Record Electricity Demands (June 27, 2005)

* Major Power Failure Across Northeast US and Most of Ontario (August 14, 2003 7:00 p.m. EST)

* IMO Declares Power Warning as Record Cold Weather Strains System (March 3, 2003)

* Power Advisory - IMO Asks Public to Reduce Electricity Consumption as Unseasonable Weather Strains System (September 20, 2002) posted by Richard at 06:57 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

finding movie quotes

I was searching for an "About a Boy" quote.

IMDB was the obvious and successful choice

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276751/quotes

However it turns out I could have also tried WikiQuote

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/About_a_Boy

and Amazon Quotes and Trivia

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005JL7O?v=glance&vi=quotes-trivia

In case you're wondering, the quote is

Will: I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?

posted by Richard at 22:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

technology used to provide MORE POWER

SUVs contain sophisticated engines which are used to save gas oops I mean provide more power.

And what of hybrids?

But the pendulum has swung. The 2005 Honda Accord hybrid gets about the same miles per gallon as the basic four-cylinder model, according to a review by Consumer Reports, a car-buyer's guide, and it saves only about two miles a gallon compared with the V-6 model on which it is based. Thanks to the hybrid technology, though, it accelerates better.

Hybrid technology, it seems, is being used in much the same way as earlier under-the-hood innovations that increased gasoline efficiency: to satisfy the American appetite for acceleration and bulk.

New York Times Hybrid Cars Burning Gas in the Drive for Power

oh for f-cks sake posted by Richard at 19:30 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

linkblog display update

I changed the linkblog display in the sidebar to use FeedBurner's BuzzBoost. It's configurable enough that I can set it up to display just bookmark titles. posted by Richard at 18:49 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Galactica 2.1

Oh my god Battlestar Galactica is good.
Season 2 is starting with almost too many plot threads running though.
But so good.
The software firewall stuff was a bit hokey though.

The New York Times Magazine has a long article about how the new series came to be

Ron Moore's Deep Space Journey

It's quite interesting, but it's odd that it only mentions the original BG but not the weird flying-motorcycle one that followed it. I guess that would have been a bit of a sidetrack to the story the article is telling.

Article via Slashdot Battlestar Galactica Resurrection Effort Described /.

Labels: battlestar galactica

posted by Richard at 18:18 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

step away from the keyboard

I will be mostly offline until mid-August 2005. posted by Richard at 09:23 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)