Greg [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Greg

[ website | gregstoll.com ]
[ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ]
[ archive | journal archive ]

Links
[Links:| * Pictures * LJBackup * Where's lunch? * iTunesAnalysis * del.icio.us bookmarks * My google map * Twitter ]

stuck at work links [Dec. 21st, 2009|10:24 am]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | chipper]

This is a 70 minute video review of "The Phantom Menace" (some NSFW language). The voice is a little weird, and there are some weird offtopic bits, but overall it's entertaining and pretty spot-on. The bit at the end of Part 1 where he asks people to describe the characters in the original trilogy vs. the prequel is pretty awesome.

'Tis the season for cable company disputes. Here's Time Warner's take on the issue versus Fox's. I find it amusing that they think that setting up websites is going to lead to consumers reading both of them, weighing the facts, and deciding who to be mad at or something. Hint: I get my cable through Time Warner, and if all of a sudden I can't see shows on Fox, I'm going to be mad at Time Warner, regardless of whose "fault" it is. I better be able to watch Lost in February!

The health care bill in the Senate passed a critical test early this morning and it looks like it's going to pass on Christmas Eve. Now to the conference committee!

Heading out to Houston tonight. Happy Christmas!
Link3 comments|Leave a comment

are the holidays here yet? links [Dec. 17th, 2009|01:33 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Mood | bored]

Health care reform - is it going to happen, and is the public option-less bill even worth passing anymore? Nate Silver asks 20 questions for people who answer "no", responds to people who answered them, and explains why he thinks it's still worth passing. Meanwhile, Atul Gawande (the guy who wrote that article about the rising cost of health care in McAllen) says that having lots of pilot projects (like the Senate bill does) is a good way to go and has worked in the past for farming.

For me, the holidays now have an odd association with Mythbusters since we seem to watch them when we're at my folks place a lot. Here's an old interview with the Mythbusters which I found pretty entertaining.

You know those Predator drones the Army is using in Iraq to target insurgents? It turns out the video they transmit is unencrypted(!) and insurgents have been able to intercept it easily.

A computer scientist looks at ICBM security.
LinkLeave a comment

links to keep me awake [Dec. 10th, 2009|01:32 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | tired]

Not two days after my previous post about the Austin commuter rail fiasco, Capital Metro fired their rail contractor. They said it shouldn't affect the schedule - it's scheduled to open early next year. Maybe there's hope?

ABC showed "A Charlie Brown Christmas" this year and cut out parts to show more commercials. The irony, it burns!

Is gay marriage 'inevitable'? - short answer, yes.

Make your own Mondrian painting! Click the squares to change color and drag the lines. Clever!
LinkLeave a comment

links so I can upgrade to Firefox 3.6 and don't want to lose my open tabs! [Dec. 8th, 2009|11:42 am]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | okay]

The Austin City Council might push for a November 2010 referendum on expanding passenger rail. This is fairly hilarious to me, since the "existing" passenger rail is over a year and a half late, and they still haven't set a start date on it. I'm a big supporter of passenger rail, but even I'm not sure I'd vote for more after the boondoggle it's become.

8 Great Gifts for Your Data Geek - hmm, I own one of these and at least one is on my Christmas list :-)

Good summary of the hacked climate change emails - yes, some bad things were done, but the evidence is still overwhelming.
Link3 comments|Leave a comment

links for what should be friday [Dec. 3rd, 2009|03:10 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood | hyper]

Seriously...long week anyone?

I put up WebOSJournal on the PreCentral homebrew gallery. Still plenty of work to be done, of course...

What every programmer should know about memory - really long article (and it's only Part 1!) but I learned a lot. (and remembered a lot from college classes :-) )

Apropos of net neutrality, How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet" (i.e. the telegraph system). The short version is that there was no government regulation and Western Union/AP fixed an election and conspired to keep non-AP newspapers out of business. Less government regulation doesn't always equal more open markets!

Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market - pretty much what the headline says. It sucks, but apparently it's legal.

No one wants America to be the sole global superpower, but no one wants to share the load.
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

pre-thanksgiving links [Nov. 25th, 2009|02:20 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | cheerful]

The Muppets cover Bohemian Rhapsody - excellent!

After some depressing articles about football and head injuries, the co-chairmen of the NFL's committee on brain injuries resigned. They were mostly discrediting studies that showed brain injuries happened a lot, so the fact that they're no longer there means that maybe the NFL is taking the problem more seriously. Here's hoping!
Link1 comment|Leave a comment

health care optimism? [Nov. 24th, 2009|05:17 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Mood | hopeful]

Based on the fact that the Senate health care bill barely got to the floor, and the fact that it sounds like 4 Senators (Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson), were going to vote against it if it contained a public option, I was pessimistic!

But now after reading this article, I'm more optimistic that even if the bill that passes doesn't have a public option, it could still make a difference in health care costs. Also, that article is required reading in the White House!
Link3 comments|Leave a comment

no-longer-quite-as-rainy link friday [Nov. 20th, 2009|02:59 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[Current Mood | chipper]

I finally took the plunge and ordered a 23andMe kit. I got the kit in the mail last night and spit into the tube (they wanted a lot of spit so it took 5 minutes to do), sealed it up and sent it off this morning. Now the waiting begins...

- The District of Columbia is proposing a same-sex marriage law. (yay!) The Catholic church, upon hearing this, warned that they would stop providing social services for DC if the law passed, despite the fact that they law specifically exempts religious organizations from having to recognize the marriages. They would, however, have to obey city laws preventing discrimination against gays.

- In other church news, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church leaders have signed the "Manhattan Declaration", saying they will not cooperate with laws about abortion or same-sex unions that they don't agree with. Again, every same-sex marriage law that I'm aware of carves out a pretty wide exemption for religious groups, so I'm a bit put out by this. HRC responds along the same lines.

- In other other church news, the Catholic Church has found that gay priests were not a factor in the sex abuse scandal. Who woulda thunk it?

- Gay Marriage & Marijuana: You can't stop either. Why that's good. I agree, although his timetable for 10 years having all states recognize same-sex unions seems a bit optimistic given the current state of affairs.
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

origami success!...mostly [Nov. 13th, 2009|11:08 am]
[Tags|, , , ]
[Current Mood | accomplished]

After a few hours of assembling, here's what I ended up with:


(more pictures behind the link) It's pretty unwieldly...hopefully it will survive on my desk for a little while.

Links!

- I've seen this around, but this support for same-sex marriage by age and state is pretty striking. Hopefully the 18-29 crowd will keep their opinion as they age :-)

- A US interstate map drawn like the London tube map. Really, I'm a sucker for anything that looks like a London tube map :-)

- Anyone else use Steepster? It's a neat way to keep track of teas and stuff. I might start recording ones I like...

- Because of some of the issues with Obama/the DNC I mentioned, a DNC donor boycott is being launched by the people at AmericaBlog. I signed up, although I don't know if I'll stick with it.
Link1 comment|Leave a comment

a lotta links [Nov. 6th, 2009|12:11 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood | chipper]

Washington voters passed Referendum 71 which gives same-sex couples the right to domestic partnerships. So at least that's good news!

A bird with a baguette damaged the Large Hadron Collider - apparently it's not going to delay it going operational later this month, but it does bring to mind the whole fate bringing down the LHC theory. Alternatively, as someone near me at work commented, it sure makes the fears of it destroying the planet seem overblown if a bird with a baguette can damage it :-)

Austin extends COBRA benefits to partners of city employees - apparently Austin is the first city in the US to do so.

Since it's been so rainy, the drought in Texas has gotten much, much better.

Big Ben is on Twitter!

A crazy idea to build a dome over Houston (a la The Simpsons Movie) to protect it from heat and hurricanes.
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

depressing articles about football [Oct. 29th, 2009|11:13 am]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | bored]

One in GQ, and one by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker. Basically, it looks like many linemen in the NFL suffer from Chronic traumatic encephalopathy which has symptoms similar to Alzheimer's.

It sounds like the NFL is being very reluctant to investigate or make changes to the game to minimize the risks. Sure, players know the risks of getting injured, but it sounds like people don't realize the risk for CTE and that it seems to be so widespread, and it can ruin your life after you leave the NFL. Head injuries are nothing to mess around with.
LinkLeave a comment

links...on friday [Oct. 23rd, 2009|01:07 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood | chipper]

Why CDC says this year's flu season is "very sobering" - the graphs show way more people getting the flu so far than in previous years.

The Large Hadron Collider was completed last year, but there was a problem that required it to be shut down until around now. It's designed to try to find the elusive Higgs boson, which some physicists call the "God particle" because the current theory is that it's what gives all particles mass. The Superconducting Super Collider was a similar project that was canceled back in 1993. Some people have taken these facts and concluded that God or fate or something must be conspiring to keep us from finding the Higgs boson, which is crazy but also kind of neat.

Apparently New York Governor David Paterson is planning to push the same-sex marriage bill next week...hoping to turn NY green on the map soon!

A neat graphic of 50 years of space exploration.
Link1 comment|Leave a comment

link friday [Oct. 16th, 2009|01:15 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | cheerful]

- The top 100 scifi/fantasy TV shows - obviously a lot of room for debate here but I was pretty happy with the top 20 or so. I've seen at least an episode of 26 of these, including 7 of the top 10. How about y'all?

- My mom was on a local TV show to talk about the swine...er, I mean H1N1 flu. Here's the video (second one down, episode 124). She was also interviewed on a different show (InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse - awesomely enough, the show was nominated for an Emmy and that episode is the one they went in!

- Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn - interesting, slightly provocative.

- George Takei and his partner Brad Altman on The Newlywed Game - awww!

- Been playing around on Google Wave some, and everyone keeps asking me what it is, which is a hard question to answer. This article at least describes what it's good at!
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

A few late Friday links [Oct. 9th, 2009|03:45 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Mood | determined]

Weekend here yet? No? OK:

- Play this game of driving while texting! I am 0.78 seconds slower while texting and missed 10% more gates, considerably worse than the average.

- Carl Sagan, autotuned

- New survey shows rising support for civil unions - 57% of Americans support civil unions, 39% support same-sex marriage. We're getting there! Surprisingly, 49% said "homosexual behavior" was "morally wrong", so I give credit to the at least 8% that said that but also support civil unions.

- Paul Krugman answers readers' questions - interesting stuff.

- Some people said some nice things about National Instruments.

- Anyone else on Google Wave? Haven't quite figured it out, but let me know and we can be wave buddies or something!
Link4 comments|Leave a comment

at-work-early links [Sep. 22nd, 2009|08:37 am]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Mood | tired]

A Bush speechwriter wrote a tell-all kinda book - an interesting excerpt:
For a commencement address at Furman University in spring 2008, Ed Gillespie wanted to insert a few lines condemning gay marriage. Bush called the speech too "condemnatory" and said, "I'm not going to tell some gay kid in the audience that he can't get married." (Of course, Bush ran his 2004 campaign telling that kid just that.)
Should I be happy that Bush wasn't really against gay marriage or mad that he pushed a constitutional amendment to ban it anyway? (answer: mad, I think)

LOST University is in session....only a few more months until new episodes come out!

Science links:

A team at NYU has developed a device that can identify materials by scanning them, kinda like a tricorder from Star Trek. It fires a laser through the object and studies the scattering of the light. Awesome!

Unsurprisingly, people you're friends with on Facebook tend to have the same views (religious, political) as you. More surprisingly, two students at MIT have used this data to predict which people are gay (who didn't declare it on Facebook). The data-loving part of me says "neato!", the squeamish-about-outing-people part of me says "kinda scary!"

Chronic Radiation Is Beneficial to Human Beings (maybe)
LinkLeave a comment

another day, another dollar [Sep. 14th, 2009|03:46 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | okay]
[Current Music |Jami Sieber - "Undercurrent" (from Braid soundtrack)]

For some reason I tend to get depressed Sunday mornings when we go to church. I'm not sure if it's because the weekend's almost over (but Sunday afternoon depression would seem more likely) or what. I usually feel better by the end of church, though. It's weird.

Yesterday I played Braid for the first time ([info]djedi finished it last week, I believe), and it's pretty cool although kinda tricky. (David helped me a lot, which I appreciated!) The art style and music are quite striking, and it turns out the creator of Braid licensed all of the music. You can buy it on Magnatune, or listen to it here with slightly annoying end of track speeches:



Music from Braid by Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz

Excellent mood music!

[info]onefishclappin posted this interesting map of which cities have more single men than women and vice versa. I would love to see an explanation for why there are more single men than women on the West Coast, and vice versa on the East Coast.

Is Happiness Catching? The answer is maybe, as you might expect, but the article lists a bunch of examples of things that are socially contagious, like obesity and smoking. For example:
When a Framingham resident became obese, his or her friends were 57 percent more likely to become obese, too. Even more astonishing to Christakis and Fowler was the fact that the effect didn’t stop there. In fact, it appeared to skip links. A Framingham resident was roughly 20 percent more likely to become obese if the friend of a friend became obese — even if the connecting friend didn’t put on a single pound. Indeed, a person’s risk of obesity went up about 10 percent even if a friend of a friend of a friend gained weight.
Link5 comments|Leave a comment

colorerorer [Sep. 2nd, 2009|10:33 am]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood | hopeful]

How many times have you had a log file with lots of pointer values and wanted to quickly see which values were equal, and even rename them with a meaningful name?

Wow. Really? Never? We lead very different lives.

Anyway, I wrote a little log colorer to do that, which has been helpful trying to track down a race condition. (and inserting a breakpoint tends to make it not happen) Also, colors!

Ben & Jerry's is celebrating that gay marriage is legal in Vermont effective yesterday (yay!) with Hubby Hubby ice cream.

In Maine, gay marriage is legal but it will be on the ballot in November. The Catholic Church, in a disappointing but not too surprising mood, is contributing $100,000 to try to repeal it even as they have to close local parishes.
LinkLeave a comment

rolling along [Aug. 27th, 2009|01:37 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Mood | cheerful]

This article on dirty coding tricks game developers have used to get to shipping is pretty cool. I particularly like one from the comments:
Back on Wing Commander 1 we were getting an exception from our EMM386 memory manager when we exited the game. We'd clear the screen and a single line would print out, something like "EMM386 Memory manager error. Blah blah blah." We had to ship ASAP. So I hex edited the error in the memory manager itself to read "Thank you for playing Wing Commander."
Texas executed an innocent man, certainly not the first.

Re-reading some old articles by Atul Gawande. (the guy who wrote the article about health care costs) He's written a lot of good articles: I particularly liked this one about checklists in the ICU and how amazingly effective they are at reducing physician error.
LinkLeave a comment

still liking my Pre [Aug. 20th, 2009|02:17 pm]
[Tags|, , , ]
[Current Mood | confused]
[Current Music |Michael Giacchino - "Star Trek" soundtrack]

Palm is now accepting submissions for the Pre App Catalog, so I went ahead and submitted PasswordHash. That one will be free but I'm thinking of charging $2 for my next one...

LabVIEW has a lot of handy keyboard shortcuts.

codepad.org is a neat place to quickly try out/share code in a bunch of different languages.

The latest in health care: maybe the Democrats are going to give up trying to compromise since the Republicans don't really seem interested, although Chuck Grassley may or may not be. Honestly, I've kinda given up trying to figure out what the hell is going on - I hope something good passes but hearing how laws that affect us actually get passed makes me sad.

The Longest Poem in the World made out of rhyming tweets.
LinkLeave a comment

spilling links [Aug. 17th, 2009|09:52 am]
[Tags|, , , ]
[Current Mood | nervous]

Pictures from New Mexico and Barbara & Alex's wedding are up. Note that the pictures from the wedding itself aren't that great...I did my best!

Published a Pre version of PasswordHash - it was relatively easy to port. A new feature (in the web and Firefox versions as well) lets you force a special character to appear in the password.

Apparently men who "strongly endorsed old-school notions of masculinity" were half as likely to get flu shots and other preventative medicine. Can't say I'm surprised.

Also, "for men, sexual boredom was correlated with variety in partners (or lack thereof), while for women, it was more related to variety in activity." Good to know? (the Coolidge effect description at Wikipedia is pretty funny)

Finally, an Obama protest I can get behind.
LinkLeave a comment

navigation
[ viewing | most recent entries ]
[ go | earlier ]