Retired or just unemployed?

Hakenbush

2011-10-01T18:24:00.001-07:00

Hakenbush
Originally uploaded by grwster

Hakenbush made it into the app store today!

Recombinant Poetry

2011-09-06T18:25:00.001-07:00

We're back from Burning Man 2011... it was a great year!

I pulled together an art project at the last minute, based on the algorithmic couplets that Thane and I have been generating from the Google ngram data.

Here's another photo set of the installation

And one of the construction.

From concept to completion (not counting the algorithmic couplets, which we already had) the project took about four hours.

Hakenbush

2011-08-17T07:09:00.001-07:00

Hakenbush
Originally uploaded by grwster

Our latest iPad game, Hakenbush, just entered beta!

http://www.hakenbush.com

Now it's time to start getting ready for Burning Man!

Algorithmic nonsense

2011-04-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last few days playing around with the google ngram data (http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/info), and now have the ability to algorithmically generate, at high speed, quality nonsense like this:

"But I dissent entirely from access to arable and pasture they were realistic enough to even describe the strengths and elongations of Venus under the smoothest and most justified by use of discretion between the preserved part of Queensland — and realise that good sound sleep to ask directions to set moral virtues as well divers"

It's addictive!

Notakto

2010-12-29T20:12:00.001-08:00

Originally uploaded by grwster

Our game, Notakto, made it into the app store today!

http://notakto.com

iPad only for now, but we're working on that...

Hello.You have been preapproved for free iPhone 4G.

2010-06-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

I sure hope this wasn't a scam. I had to give them a lot of personal information, but I can't wait to receive my free iPhone 4G! ;-)

From: kristinafullerya@apple.com
Subject: Hello.You have been preapproved for free iPhone 4G. Please confirm delivery address.
Date: June 7, 2010 2:49:29 PM CDT

My dear pal

You know what, I am in a very good feelings so may I tell you a thing? I'm a sales rep. director target in your region.
As a rep, I'm allowed to offer out 3 giifts phone each week as "returns" to frequent customers.
We just obtained the brand new Apple iPhone 4G!
Actually, noone has claimed theirs yet for the period (I don't believe they actually believe we do this :D)
so if you claim one before the night shift ends, I'll be pleased to deliver it to you.

Please confirm yours free request here

Moses Cassio,
Consumer consultant director

H1N1?

2009-11-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

I felt fine on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I woke with a sniffle, felt progressively worse through the day, and was running a fever by nightfall. For the next three days, between congestion, fever and sinus headaches, I felt lobotomized. The fever finally broke on Sunday and today, Monday, I'm back to normal. I don't even have much of a cough.

Of course, the question on my mind as I suffered on the couch was, what strain of flu do I have? I got the seasonal flu shot a couple of weeks ago, so it would be a little surprising to get hit so hard with one of those strains. I'll never know for sure, but a little research today leads me to believe that I probably had H1N1.

The CDC stats (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/) are amazing: "During week 43, seasonal influenza A (H1), A (H3), and B viruses co-circulated at low levels with 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Over 99% of all subtyped influenza A viruses reported to CDC this week were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses."

Yay Tom!

2009-08-30T20:47:00.001-07:00

Yay Tom!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Tom just finished Ironman Canada, his first Ironman, in 11th place in his age group -- awesome performance!

We'll miss you at Burning Man!

Our new burningman tent

2009-08-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

Our new burning man tent
Originally uploaded by grwster

It's a Kodiak, made out of canvas and completely seals up to keep out the dust.

We made some feet for the poles to keep them from sinking into the playa when we tie it down with guy lines.

I'm also thinking about fashioning some kind of bungle fastener where the upright poles meet the "T-bars" at the roof. Either that or just using a roll of duct tape to keep them from coming apart in the wind.

Garage door opener repair

2009-08-30T13:41:00.001-07:00

Garage door opener repair
Originally uploaded by grwster

Had to replace the transmitter side of the safety beam on Dad's garage door opener.

I suspect a cheap IR LED that degraded until it was too dim to fully activate the receiver (even after careful alignment the receiver indicator flickered).

We diagnosed the problem by moving the transmitter and receiver closer together and noticing that the receiver indicator was solid at close range (and the door worked fine). I suppose we could have just mounted them next to each other, disabling the safety feature, but that didn't seem very smart.

Starting to feel like burningman!

2009-08-27T17:26:00.001-07:00

Done!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Beth and I both got some color today. Hers is blue and green. Mine is purple and red.

Skunk 1, Rosie 0

2009-08-26T23:23:00.001-07:00

Skunk 1, Rosie 0
Originally uploaded by grwster

We've had a skunk roaming the neighborhood and tonight it visited our yard. Rosie was on night patrol. Skunk 1, Rosie 0.

It got her in the face. Lots of yelping, rolling in the dirt, and a long bath with shampoo and then hydrogen peroxide and baking soda (nope, not tomato juice), followed by lots of rinsing.

She's sleeping in the kennel tonight.

Fortunately, the smell wasn't too bad. I guess it didn't fire everything it had. Or it's already had a busy night.

Augustfest

2009-08-26T21:26:00.001-07:00

Augustfest
Originally uploaded by grwster

Since we're off to burningman in a few days we jumped the gun and tapped our Oktoberfest. Mmmm.

TomTom for iPhone Rocks

2009-08-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was "forced" to upgrade to an iPhone 3G (long story for another post), I've been impatiently waiting for turn-by-turn driving directions.

We have older cars without built-in navigation systems, and I don't need one often enough to justify yet another device, so having an app on the iPhone is perfect. I was hoping for turn-by-turn directions to be added to the built-in map application in 3.0, which obviously didn't happen. The TomTom app was announced though, and that sounded great except the part about it not be ready yet. I didn't really consider the AT&T app when it came out, both because of the monthly cost and because it requires network connectivity to work (lame). I considered the Navigon app when I heard about it, but was put off by some of the reviews and the fact that Apple appeared to favor TomTom. In the spirit of "pick your battles" I follow Apple's lead unless I have a good reason not to, so I waited...

When I heard on Sunday night that the app had been released in NZ, I figured it would be available in the US on Monday. Sure enough, it was! Perfect, I had a use for it Monday morning so I bought it and started downloading... and downloading... I had to leave before it finished. I did get it installed when I returned later that day, but other than playing around with it while walking to the dog park I didn't have another use for it until this morning...

It's great! I don't even need the car kit since I'm lucky enough to have a cup holder perfectly positioned to hold the iphone and I get a good GPS signal in that location. The only improvement I'd like to see is text-to-speech for the street names and I don't see why they won't be able to do that someday. Very happy.

Tickets!

2009-08-20T13:30:00.001-07:00

Tickets!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Scrambling to pull everything together for a last minute burn... didn't think we were going to make it this year but now we are! Yay!!

Just got back from

a) buying our tickets at Sports Basement (awesome sporting goods store)

b) buying a new in-the-box Kodiak canvas tent from a local craigslister who did his research and planned ahead, unlike us, but now can't go

Everyone says the canvas tents stay cooler and cleaner. We'll see...

Choco IPA

2009-08-17T21:19:00.001-07:00

Choco IPA
Originally uploaded by grwster

Just tapped. Mmmm.

We'll probably double the chocolate malt next time for an even darker color.

Holstein Hundred

2009-08-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

I finally got my road bike out of storage (the mountain bike is next) and went for a ride this past weekend up in Marin: The Holstein Hundred

The weather was great and the scenery was fantastic. I did the "metric" option and we got a bonus of four more miles than the advertised distance of 67 miles (for a total of 71 miles). ;-)

Oregon Beer and Hikes

2009-08-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

We just got back from two back-to-back beer festivals (and pub crawling) in the Portland area, with a week of hiking around Mt Hood, Mt St Helens and the Oregon coast (and pub crawling) in between.

The Portland International Beer Festival (PIB) was on the first weekend and the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) was on the second weekend.

PIB was a smaller festival with a bigger selection of beers (yay) but no representation from the breweries (boo). OBF is bigger, and the brewers show up (yay), but each brewery is limited to one beer so it's a little boring (boo).

If you can only go to one, I'd recommend PIB. If you do go to OBF then you should make sure to check out "The Buzz Tent" -- that's where the brewers hang out and where you can sample some more interesting beers.

Re-Retired

2009-08-17T18:37:00.000-07:00

A milestone of sorts today as I reclaim the status of "retired or just unemployed"!

I have been mostly absent from this blog since Feb 2008, when I got involved in starting up a very different kind of venture than I've done before... lots of fun and lots of work, but it's up and running now and today I officially transitioned to an advisory role.

Yes to Change

2008-10-29T14:18:00.001-07:00

Yes to Change
Originally uploaded by grwster

I voted last night!

This gives me hope:

Burn baby burn

2008-08-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

The man burns in 227 days!

2008-01-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

Or maybe earlier ;-)

Either way, I have my ticket!

Three clever people recreate Omaha Beach

2008-01-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is great!
(from boing boing)

Don't hire this architect

2008-01-13T18:48:00.001-08:00

We were out looking at houses last weekend when I took this picture.
Yes, that's the attic access in a skylight well in the ceiling... believe it or not, this wssn't the
dumbest feature of this house.

Mud Park

2008-01-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

Our local dog park finally reopened after being closed for several months!

You can't really tell in this photo but it's a muddy mess from all of the rain we've had recently. The funny thing is that the park was closed to rehabilitate the grass... any rehabilitation that happened has surely been undone. ;-)

Mud Dog

2008-01-12T16:48:00.000-08:00

Cooling off in the mud ar Pulgas Ridge after a hard run.

Dog's Life

2008-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Spying on Rosie at doggie day care... that's her in the middle of the room with the white tip on her tail.

Flat Pack Technician

2008-01-06T10:27:00.001-08:00

I've found work as a flat pack assembly technician... putting together
a throne for our new TV. Which frees up my old college entertainment
wall unit to provide more book storage in the beedroom!

Refridgerator Archeology

2008-01-06T10:18:00.001-08:00

We found a 5 year old Belgian Ale that was fantastic. This 12 year old
Triple Bock didn't hold up so well. ;-)

What's wrong with this picture?

2008-01-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Rose Bowl

2008-01-01T15:41:00.001-08:00

Now in Hi Def!

We finally replaced our old 20 inch TV... with a modest 40 inch flat
panel. The best part is the over-the-air HDTV content, a lot of it in
1080i.

5K Fun Run

2008-01-01T10:21:00.001-08:00

We started the new year off with a 5K fun run in Los Altos. I finished
in 30 minutes, which isn't speedy but it's also not any slower than
I'm used to running. Whoo!

New Year's Tapas

2007-12-31T18:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Finally

2007-12-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

This is an encouraging ray of hope... maybe the US will follow suit. (from boingboing)

Signs

2007-12-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

We walked by the Peninsula Open Space Trust offices on High St this morning and saw this parking sign... Hop Along Now

Yesterday we were at the post office, where Rosie had to wait outside... No Pets Allowed

Tour of Doodie

2007-12-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

Tour of Doodie
Originally uploaded by grwster

Dog poop pickup companies have the best names... must start blogging them when I see them.

Skidboot

2007-12-26T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is a great story...

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

We just finished Christmas dinner here in Redding -- we cooked a small turkey on the BBQ this year and it turned out great!

There's a lot of conflicting information on the web on how long it takes to cook a turkey on a BBQ, so here's our experience:

The turkey was 8 pounds, was "all white meat" (which meant that the legs had been removed), and was cooked without stuffing or being trussed. The BBQ was gas (not charcoal) and the turkey was placed inside (with the cover closed) in a cast iron skillet and covered with a foil tent. The burners were set to a medium position. A meat thermometer was used to measure the internal temperature.

After two hours, or about 15 minutes per pound, the internal temperature reached 190F. At about 2:15 we turned off the heat and let the turkey rest for another 30 minutes. The meat was moist and delicious.

Pecan Trees

2007-12-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

I was researching the water needs of Pecan trees, with the idea of planting one here in California for Rosie, when I found this fascinating article.

A mature Pecan tree requires 55 acre-inches of water over the April-October growing season, which works out to 100 gallons of water per day (during the growing season)!

Another interesting fact is how the depth (and composition) of the soil plays into the equation "a tree growing in a soil 7 feet deep has the potential of 9,000 gallons of available water per tree compared to a 7-inch-deep soil, which has the potential of only 800 gallons of available water per tree".

They're well suited to Austin, where it rains throughout the year, but I don't think we'll be planting one here.

Reindeer Truck

2007-12-24T14:50:00.001-08:00

Seen on the way to Redding yesterday (full photo on flickr).

Cider Experiment

2007-12-22T15:45:00.001-08:00

Inspired by one our brewing friends in Austin, we're making some hard
cider with an American Ale yeast (unlike Champagne yeast, it leaves a nice amount of residual sugar).

Podcasts

2007-12-22T15:07:00.000-08:00

We've made a habit of loading up on podcasts for long drives -- it's a great way to pass the time. Here are links to some of the podcasts we listened to on the trip back to California:

Back in California

2007-12-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

We made it back to California on Wednesday and have been busy running errands and settling in... brrr the house here is cold. I think we need to look into improving the attic insulation.

To celebrate being back we had folks over last night for some holiday tapas, a taste of Beth's dissertation ale, and tapping the keg of beer that we brewed when we were here over the summer. It also turned out to be Thane's birthday so we had cake!

I was happy to be able to revive our keg of homebrew since our CO2 tank ran empty while I was carbonating it and I wasn't sure what state it was in. We got the tank refilled yesterday at Carbonic Services in San Jose (actually, we got a small loaner tank while our tank is pressure tested and re-certified) and all seems fine, except that the regulator is now acting funny... I suspect it might have gotten some backwash when the pressure dropped in the tank so I probably need to clean it out.

Tehachapi Pass

2007-12-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

Tehachapi Pass is covered with windmills...

We drove through some fog on the way down into Bakersfield, but all is
clear now along I-5.

California 58

2007-12-19T07:49:00.001-08:00

We made it past Needles to Barstow CA last night. Heading towards
Mojave and then Bakersfield and I-5 this morning...

Tucson

2007-12-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

Taking a break at the dog park in Tucson.

I-10 through New Mexico

2007-12-18T06:53:00.000-08:00

We stopped in Deming NM last night and are aiming for Needles CA
tonight.

On The Road

2007-12-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

Taking a break in Fredricksburg, about 2 hours in to our 12 hour day...

A Day in Austin

2007-12-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from our last day in Austin before we head to California for Christmas (more on Flickr):

Morning coffee at Quacks -- we started the day with our customary morning walk, eating pecans and chasing squirrels along the way.

Brunch at Opal Divines -- taking a break from packing and running errands, we had lunch on the patio at Opal's (Mmm migas).

Going through the car wash -- on the way to the storage unit to get the roof racks we went through the car wash (Rosie looks concerned)

First Week / Last Week

2007-12-16T18:39:00.001-08:00

HMNS
Originally uploaded by grwster

We celebrated Beth's first post-doctoral week with a visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see the Lucy (australopitecus afarensis) exhibit. It was fantastic. In addition the 40% complete skeleton of Lucy, and the explanation from Beth on how you can tell that she was an upright walker, there was also a fascinating exhibit on the culture of Ethiopia -- birthplace of coffee and Rastafarians -- I had no idea.

We stayed in a nice hotel in the museum district and hit up the contemporary fine art collections while we were there, in particular a Damien Hirst installation.

The rest of the week has been a blur of seeing people and packing up for the drive home, as it is also our last week in Austin. The car is packed and we start the drive to California in the morning!

Hooded

2007-12-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

Beth's Commencement

2007-12-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

Live from the Erwin Center...

[Update]

Here's video of Beth's hooding.

Champagne Toast

2007-12-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

First of many planned for this weekend...

Dr Beth's Signature Tonic

2007-12-08T13:37:00.001-08:00

We labeled our blackstar homebrew for Beth's graduation party.

That's the signature page from her dissertation on the label. The bottom two lines read "committee approved / blackstar brewed"

Hyde Park

2007-12-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Hyde Park, Austin TX
Originally uploaded by grwster

Here's the story of Hyde Park (Austin, TX) as posted in our local park:

In 1891, this neighborhood was among the fist planned subdivisions in the city and the first development involving a design for street cars.

Hyde Park was the vision of Monroe M. Shipe, who with the Missouri-Kansas and Texas Lang Company, established a 36-block are patterned after the exclusive London neighborhood.

Distinctive elementes in this district are the home and studio of German sculptress Elisabet Ney, residence of Swiss woodcarver Peret Mansbendel, the Moonlight Tower at 41st Street and Speedway, and the Avenue B Grocery Store, a vivid reminder of a now rare propery within a residential neighborhood.

Hyde Park's "long distance" from downtown (20 blocks) made it "The Pride of Austin" with amenities such as a park pavillion, green space, 2 lakes, and a electric streetcar that ran to downtown.

Growth, economics, permissive zoning, and other factors combined with development pressures and eroded much of the historic fabric. Through education, awareness of the benefits of historic preservation, proximity to shopping and access to the University and downtown, the area began a resurgence in restoration and rehabilitation.

Bungalows and Victorian style homes remain in this tree-lined neighborhood along with other styles and materials of differing scales which together demonstrate the enviable desirability of historic preservation here and elesewhere.

They don't mention that part of Monroe's vision was an exclusively white community.

Beth's Bunker

2007-12-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

Beth in her bunker in PCL.

Elf Yourself

2007-12-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

Dr Dawson

2007-12-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

Beth's Defense

2007-12-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

There was a big turnout, but everyone sat in back. After the talk, and
some Q&A they kicked us out...

Big Bug

2007-12-02T13:52:00.001-08:00

Big Bug
Originally uploaded by grwster

We just made a trip into Beth's office to print out her signature page -- she defends tomorrow!

This giant dead bug, which she assures me is real, was on the shelf above her office mate's desk. Yikes!

Squirrel Hunter

2007-12-01T15:16:00.000-08:00

We went to visit Beth on campus this afternoon. Maybe it's the bumper crop of pecans this year, but there's a serious squirrel infestation going on. Rosie was on alert the whole way. Here she has one in her sights...

Nap Time

2007-11-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

Black Star on KLRU

2007-11-29T17:36:00.000-08:00

The documentary short on Black Star Co-op that was filmed at the October beer social (that we were at) just aired on KLRU. Here's a link to the program that includes a youtube video.

Duke

2007-11-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

We walk by Duke's house most mornings on the way to Quacks for coffee.
He usually barks at us, but not this morning.

Live Chat

2007-11-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

The latest fad in online commerce is live chats with sales critters. I've been playing around with a chat server that markets itself for that purpose, in addition to other things, so when I was making a hotel reservation today and a chat window popped up I decided to click on it.

I wasn't fast enough to get a screen grab of the chat in progress, but here's the "Thank You" screen at the end and here's the transcript of the chat. The agent's name was "Jessica" -- yeah right. The messages were obviously canned. I wonder how many sessions each agent handles at once.

Jessica	Hi Greg, I'm Jessica and just for visiting Days Inn today, we'd like to give you the opportunity to get $20 off your Days Inn reservation. Please type HI or HELLO in the space below to let me know you are there...
Jessica	Just type HI in the space below...
Greg	hi
Jessica	Hi Greg, I have great news! Just for chatting with me today, I can increase your savings from $20 to $30! That's a $30 cash back mail-in rebate on the reservation you just made!
Greg	ok
Jessica	This comes along with a membership to Days Inn, Travelers Advantage with the first 30 days FREE. You'll enjoy FULL ACCESS to our travel agency and get our LOW PRICE GUARANTEE on all of your eligible travel reservations!
Jessica	And even if you decide to cancel, you can still get your $30 cash back mail-in rebate ... it's our way of saying THANK YOU just for trying Days Inn, Travelers Advantage.
Greg	no thanks
Jessica	Keep in mind that by accepting this now, you are not obligated to keep your Days Inn Travelers Advantage membership... we'd just like for you to look over the fantastic savings and benefits...
Greg	i understand. no thanks though
Greg	have a nice day
Jessica	Okay, no problem, I'll note that you have declined the offer and you will NOT be enrolled. Please note that YOUR CREDIT CARD WILL NOT BE CHARGED. Thank you for your time and have a good day!
Greg	thanks

Parkour

2007-11-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

This is completely insane. The real fun starts about 2 minutes into the video.

Here's some background on parkour.

(thanks to William Gibson for the link)

Blue and Green

2007-11-27T13:25:00.001-08:00

This is how it turned out... good for another month.

Faded

2007-11-27T11:50:00.000-08:00

Faded and shaggy, it's time to see Rachel. She's going to try reviving
the blue and covering the rest with green.

Fire and Ice

2007-11-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

We had ice on the windshield of the car this morning! Not a lot, but still... hopefully the non-hot weather is finally here to stay.

Something between fire and ice would be nice -- I think it's called Fall -- but I'll settle for Winter at this point. We bundled up and had a good run at the dog park.

Double Dee

2007-11-25T17:17:00.000-08:00

It has been two weeks since we bottled the Black Star Double Dee, so I decided to open one up and see how it's doing... the answer is quite nicely!

Happy 77!

2007-11-24T11:29:00.000-08:00

Pete opening his barking dog birthday card at River Point...

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

Forget the turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatos and gravy, the
football games... I give thanks that the local espresso shop was open
this afternoon!

Texas Backroads

2007-11-21T15:56:00.001-08:00

On the way to Turkey Day festivities... the cold front is finally
blowing in and dumping some rain. You can see the line in the sky in
this photo.

Guitar Hero

2007-11-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

Luis pauses between songs on guitar hero. I'd never seen it played
before, it's pretty neat - sort of like dance dance revolution with a
guitar.

I don't know if you can spot them all in the photo, but I think Luis
has one of every game console on the market.

Pretzel

2007-11-19T09:04:00.001-08:00

Rosie came from Forgotten Friends - Mixed Breed Rescue, with the name Pretzel. That's her in the middle of the screenshot.

She was apparently picked up, as a puppy, on the streets of Leander, TX. They just euthanize stray dogs in Leander, which is where private rescue groups like Forgotten Friends come in.

We got Rosie when she was 6 months old and she has been a fantastic dog. She's now almost 3. We've been supporting Forgotten Friends ever since.

Bad Blogger

2007-11-18T23:07:00.000-08:00

Beth reminded me at dinner tonight that I hadn't updated my blog in several days... bad blogger!

I'm usually good about snapping a picture here and there and sending an update, but I think since I've been experimenting with Facebook and Twitter some of those updates have turned into status updates or twitters (twits?). I have to say that it's a bit frustrating to have so many places to post updates. I want a single unified blogging interface!

Here's a recap of the last few days:

Beth has been crazy busy with the final touches on her dissertation and related journal articles. Just two more weeks to her defense!

We got out to the Gingerman on Friday for a few beers with a new friend from Black Star Co-op, and met some even newer friends while we were there. We ran into the newer friends at Zen Noodles again on Sunday night.

Rosie and I got out to Walnut Creek on Saturday while Beth slogged through re-running her statistics in a new and unfamiliar stats package.

Saturday night we headed up to Hutto to hang out with some old friends. Jamie has just gotten into homebrewing and had his first beer bottled and ready to drink, a very nice Hefeweizen! He also had a cider experiment going that turned out amazingly well, organic apple juice fermented with a White Labs Ale Yeast! Normally you wouldn't use a ale yeast for cider, but he had a spare that he got along with a bunch of brewing and kegging equipment from craigslist.

This morning we all got out to Walnut Creek and then Beth headed in for more stats and paper whacking.

This evening we bought a stack of books at Book People and then met some friends for dinner at Zen Noodles. Trey is in the Arabic Studies program and had a job over the summer doing intelligence analysis of Middle East news sources - now he's doing the same thing on his own blog! He used to live in Yemen and has a good perspective on events in the Middle East.

Finally, Tom is working on generating Sudoku puzzles for an appendix to his paper and we're finding that Jellyfish are very rare. In a set of 10,000 puzzles that I generated, they only came up .03% of the time in ANY puzzle, and Tom is looking for puzzles that contain ONLY Jellyfish (and the core techniques).

Colossus

2007-11-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

This " Bletchley Park's Colossus codebreaker to race modern PC in cracking Nazi codes" is great! Now I want to visit Bletchley Park even more.

Here's a link to the TNMoC's Cipher Challenge. Need to find Lorenz codebreaking software to install...

Escala Condominiums

2007-11-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

This is the apartment building we used to live in, that we were
evicted from six months ago to make way for condoification. The
original owner bailed on the project, before even starting the work,
and sold the building. We weren't sure what the new owners would do,
but it looks like they went ahead with the original plan.

Big Stick

2007-11-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

Tired of chasing the stick, time to chew on it...

Flash Test 1

2007-11-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

I finally got an opportunity to play around with Flash and created this animation of my old Cabernet Consulting logo, as I envisioned it back then before things like flash animation existed.

Get it? "net" Consulting? I thought that was pretty clever back in 1994.

With the keyframe and 'tween' animation support it's pretty easy to do things like this. I don't know if I would want to animate an episode of South Park this way though. For that something like Anime Studio is probably better.

Sudoku Followup

2007-11-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

As you might recall, I did my first Sudoku a week ago. Since then I've been reading up on the various solving techniques (tom has a good paper here) and playing around with code to generate puzzles. Here are the first few puzzles out of my generator:

Easy

	3
8
9

4		8

2		1

	6
		4
		3

		2

		6

5

		7

1

8

1
6
	2

3		4

1		5

		2
		7
	4

Easy

9
4		2
	1


8		3

		8
9
	5

		3

		6

5		8

1		2

4

3

	6
		5
8


7		4

	9
6		1
		5

Medium

		3
	8
6

5		1
6		7

9
	2
		8

	1

	5

7

		2

	3

	8

5
	6
		7


3		8
4		5

		9
	4
3

Medium

8		2
	9	5


4		2

1		9
	3

2

3

5		8

6		1

		7

		2


	1
9		3


7		6


5	2
4		1

Hard

		5
	4
8	1


3		6

7
	5
		6

		9

		4

2		1

6		9

8

5

4
	5
		8


1		4

	6	5
	2
1

Bottling

2007-11-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

I brought back a suitcase full of bottles from calif, along with our
bottling equipment, and bottled the black star homebrew today. We
haven't bottled since we got the kegging system, but that's still in
calif and too much to haul out on the plane. Anyway, it all went fine
and we should be drinking homebtew in a couple weeks!

Walnut Creek

2007-11-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

Our new favorite place to go off-leash hiking. Bigger than Turkey Creek and no endangered warblers to worry about.

Tomato Plant

2007-11-08T09:43:00.000-08:00

Standing in our driveway this morning I noticed this volunteer cherry
tomato plant growing in our flower bed!

Congratulations

2007-11-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

Last day at *****! Yay!

Sudoku

2007-11-03T17:13:00.001-07:00

I did my first ever sudoku yesterday, online. Today I did two more in
the Palo Alto Daily.

I have to admit that they're more fun than I thought they would be,
but I still think I'm more of a crossword fan.

Will Taylor and Strings Attached

2007-11-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

At Threadgills doing the Pink Floyd show...

B Scene at the Blanton

2007-11-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Giant balloon sculptures hanging from the ceiling (B Scene at the Blanton Museum).

Salvation Pizza

2007-11-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

The aftermath... was too hungry to remember to take picture before we
ate. ;-)

Rosie is asleep under the table.

Halloween

2007-10-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

Double Slit Experiment

2007-10-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Double Slit Experiment
Originally uploaded by grwster

I was researching the Double Slit experiment [here] and [here], with an eye towards seeing how much of it I could reproduce at home with a cheap laser pointer, when I came across this account of Thomas Young's experiment from the 1800s.

I love the idea of reproducing classic science experiments, since they can typically be done at home without exotic equipment! It's a bit sad that science has progressed to the point that it takes years of study and lots of money to do any novel work.

So, I headed out to Fry's and bought a cheap $8 laser pointer (easier than directing a beam of sunlight through a pinhole in a window shade), cannibalized the cardboard out of the packaging for the beam divider, and got some aluminum foil from the kitchen to make a pinhole. Half an hour later, using a tape measure and some tape out of my desk drawer (see pictures on Flickr), I had this faint picture of the interference pattern caused by the wave nature of light. Whoo!

Maybe I'll get some better pictures tonight when its gets dark.

VW the new Ford

2007-10-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

As in "fix or repair daily"... at least we're not into the n-unit
repair territory that signals the end of a BMW's life. This little
piece of plastic was only $15.46

Your Speed Is

2007-10-29T10:01:00.001-07:00

Bus detour from hell
Originally uploaded by grwster

Enough of us have complained about the bus detour from hell, down our street, that they installed one of those "your speed is" radar machines. It has really slowed the buses down, which makes a huge difference!

At least political action still works at the community level...

Black Star Brew Update

2007-10-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

After a week of vigourous fermentation the beer that we brewed last weekend has slowed down, so I transferred it to secondary. All of our equipment is in CA so I had to borrow a siphon from Jeff and I'm just using another cheap plastic bucket from the restaurant supply shop instead of a glass carboy. I got lucky with the weather -- the temperature in the back room has been hovering around 68-70F, which is perfect.

With luck it will be bottled and ready to drink in time for Beth's graduation!

Black Star Social

2007-10-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

Enjoying a High Esteem at the Black Star Co-op social. Mmm nice and hoppy!

[Update]

Red Rover was finally tappped... Mmm, with lots of honey it's delicious.

Flaming Tuba

2007-10-26T09:24:00.001-07:00

IMG 2099
Originally uploaded by grwster

According to Boing Boing TV, the flaming tuba guy I saw at Burning Man is David Silverman (director / producer of The Simpsons) - Neat!

Witch Fire

2007-10-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't heard from Ed, who lives in Poway, so I did some research this morning to see if I could figure out how close the fire got to his house... the answer, according to this map, is frighteningly close! He lives on Orchard Bend Rd, which runs south from Espola (near the middle of this screenshot) -- less than 1km from the fire line!

Mario Capecchi

2007-10-25T17:53:00.001-07:00

Talking with Mario Capecchi, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine! He's a really nice guy.

Beth asked him what he thought was the best way to get kids interested in science. He replied that kids are born with a natural curiosity and so the trick is to catch them young enough, before that curiosity is lost, and help them develop a passion for it.

I asked him if he had thought about what to do, if anything, with the audience that the award gave him. He replied that he thought it was important to explain things to non-scientists in plain language, so that they won't vote against things like stem cell research based on misinformation and fear.

Mother's Cafe

2007-10-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

Mother's Cafe and Garden, temporarily minus the garden, finally
reopened after being closed by a fire back on march. Yay!

Podcast Test 1

2007-10-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

The last time I played around with GarageBand was several versions and a much slower computer ago... it didn't work that well back then. Now it rocks!

Now it even has a podcasting mode, which would be cool if I had any use for it. Here's my first (and probably last) podcast. Be warned that it is incredibly inane, so don't go to too much trouble to listen to it (no, that's not really Rosie barking - it's a stock sound effect).