Delays as the norm

On Thursday, the failure of a single piece of hardware in Salt Lake City made a wreck of the air travel system. It impacted hundred of flights and resulted in cancellations and delays across the country as we head into one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.

From the Seattle PI:

ATLANTA -- Air travelers nationwide scrambled to revise their plans Thursday after an FAA computer glitch caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15 months. The Federal Aviation Administration said the problem, which lasted about four hours, was fixed around 9 a.m., but it was unclear how long flights would be affected.

My favorite part is that so many airports are so messed up that massive delays and cancellations look like business as usual.

Despite the problems, the public areas of Atlanta's airport seemed no busier than usual.
 ...
In the public areas of Newark International Airport, where delays are routine, Thursday seemed like a normal day, though several people paced around the terminal trying to rearrange their plans.

...More

The actions of the airports would be worthy of kudos if the situation was more like, "they delays meant a lot more people were in the airport waiting for flights, but the logistics were manageable."  The issue is that there was no evident difference between this day and any other.  The major mess was just business as usual.

Geek Culture Part 01: w00tstock poster

Seeing the various Geek Culture posts I've done over the past year, it's time it gets its own title category.

This weekend, I finally got around to hanging my w00tstock poster.  I picked it up at this show in San Francisco last month.  After a nearly 3.5+ hour show, the performers stayed around so everyone who wanted to could meet and chat with them.  My poster has autographs from:

• Paul and Storm
• Kid Beyond
• Molly Lewis (think Sarah Vowell with a ukulele)
• Adam Savage
• Wil Wheaton

So it's a great keepsake from the event.

Despite meeting with hundreds of fans, everyone was genuinely nice and friendly.  They all still had the energy to talk to people. 

I made a point of mentioning to Molly how much I enjoyed "Our American Cousin," her song about the Lincoln assassination.  She said that even though you're not supposed to pick your favorite child, it's probably her favorite too.

I chatted with Adam Savage about how much I enjoyed Mythbusters and appreciated the way they constantly illustrated the whole control/experiment structure. He said they weren't actually trying to do that.  All they wanted to do was tell good stories. Adam was all about telling stories, and that was really interesting.  If it wasn't for the press of the line behind me, I think I could have gone on chatting with Adam quite a while without crossing over into annoying fan.  He really seemed to enjoy talking with everyone who came up to him. 

So there was plenty of awesomeness all around.  While my Paul and Storm, Kid Beyond, and Wil Wheaton anecdotes aren't quite as interesting to tell, they were also great with the fans.

So I framed the poster, which was the point of this post.  And now it's hanging on my wall.  I picked up a "cheap" discontinued frame at Aaron Brothers, and paid $25 for it. 

What's with the framing consortium?!  I know custom framing is expensive (hundreds of dollars for a decent size puzzle), and I'm sure that stuff requires great skill.  I'm not saying it's not worth it, or that it's easy (I spent many hours making frames for puzzles and Special Olympics medals as a child). At that same time though, it's crazy.

My poster cost $5 and the autographs cost some Sharpie ink.  Okay, the autographs now make it awesome and priceless, but still. 

It just seems wrong to spend 5 times as much on the accessory for something as I do on the thing itself.  What is this? Printer ink?

Packaging fun -- Coffee Pocky

A couple weeks ago, The GF picked up a snack for me at Uwajimaya, the local Asian supermarket.  The snack was coffee-flavored Pocky Sticks.  They tasted sort of like a solid version of the Starbucks Frappacinos you see in bottles at the grocery store.  So basically like coffee scented milk.

The real fun began when looked at the packaging.  It seemed to be telling a story:

Naturally, this appeals to me. It involves coffee.  It involves snacks.  It involves a puzzle. And it involves a garden.

I have no ideal what the characters above the pot say so I am left to guess.

Pots A, B, and C appear identical, and they get an identical amount of water.  Yet they sprout different sizes and quantities of flowers.

Is this a metaphor for life?  The idea that strange things can happen?

Is this an indictment of science that says even when the inputs are identical, you still can get different results?

Is this a lesson in Quantum physics that says even when the inputs are identical you still can get different results?

Is this a mini-Forrest Gump where the pots represent the chocalates in the box, and "You never know what your gonna get?"

Is it a diagram of the Pocky production process?

Is it a subliminal message from the floral industry telling me I need to buy flowers for some reason?

Is it a reminder to start work on my garden now?

My mind boggles at the possibilities.  And I am now spending way too much time contemplating Pocky.


Contemplate Pocky
So crunchy, sweet, and floral
I still need coffee

Super Mario Galaxy and 244 Stars

Finally.

Two years ago, I started playing this game on the Wii and mentioned it here.  Tonight I finally beat it.  I got all 244 stars, playing as both characters, and it only cost me 3,464 lives (2,270 Marios and 1,194 Luigis).

Now, I didn't play straight through like I would have as a kid.  Things like work interferred with my video game time, and there were the daliances with Mario Kart, Guitar Hero, Wall*E (only once  -- great movie, stupid game), and Wii Fit.

The neat things is that I don't alwasy finish video games.  They get too hard, or I lose interest, or something else distracts me.  This was a game that I kept coming back to, and it marks the second console game I've actually finished (the first being Paper Mario for the Wii).

And now I can relax and work on other projects.

At least until Super Mario Galaxy 2 comes out.

Currier Museum of Art

Earlier this week, I unexpectedly found myself with a few hours to kill in Manchester, NH.  A colleague suggested I visit the Currier Museum of Art. A $10 admission fee got me into this neat facility.

At first I was regretting my decision to visit.  The first gallery was mainly paperweights.  Paperweights!  The sheer mundanaity of the concept hurt my head. But I looked closer, and some of these glass weights were beautiful and impressively crafted, especially since they were so old.  In general, I found the glass on exhibit here to be more interesting than the exhibits at Tacoma's Museum of Glass. 

But the cool stuff was behind another door. The European wing featured paintings that were hundreds of years old.  The skill that it took to create these images is something I rarely think about.  Yet the detail in the paintings, the colors of the faces, the emotions that reach out from the canvas seem just as vivid now as they must have been hundreds or years ago.

While there is no touching of the art, you can still get close to it.  I found it a powerful experience to be staring  with my face inches away from these paintings hundreds of years old.  One even predated Columbus's journey to the new world. 

These fragile treasures survived wars, fires, the rise and fall of nations and civilizations, weather, being lost, stolen , or found, and they eventually made their way to this small corner of New Hampshire.

It makes my head spin.

The other really cool thing they had was an exhibit of photography of Brett Weston.  Most people can name Ansel Adams as a well-known American photography, but hoe many people can name others?  I was not familiar with Weston's striking and natural work, but I'm glad I got to see these images and learn a little about his story.

I know enough about photography, that I feel if I had the time and inclination, I could do work just like these masters.  But then I look at these collections of images -- these simple images, and know that I can't.

An artistic photograph isn't finalized in Photoshop, or the dark room, or the camera.  The shot is done before the artist presses the shutter.  It's done when the artist chooses the scene and chooses the frame.  The camera is just equipment.

But the point is, if you have the time to check our the Currier, do so.  I only highlighted a couple sections.  There is still plenty more to see the next time you are in New Hampshire.

Life in the Garden Part 35: Plant Nanny

It's November and the deck is pretty bare now.  I have a few plants out there trying to last through the winter and we'll see how they do. This gives me a good opportunity to look at garden equipment from this year.

Regulating water is a perenial challenge so this year I added Plant Nannies.

 

A Plant Nanny  is a piece or terracotta that you put in the pot.  The included auger helps you did deep enough so that the top of the Plant Nanny is at or just above the soil level.

Then you fill a wine bottle with water and turn it upside down in the Plant Nanny.  Jim Beam bottles work too.  The water doesn't pour out.  Instead, it seeps slowly into the soil through the Plant Nanny.  A wine bottle of water can last days or weeks depending on the weather, soil, plant and other watering habbits. 

If you get them in the pot early enough, roots will often grow around the Plant Nanny as the seek the water source.

There is another type of Plant Nanny, too.  If you want to use soda bottles, or other threaded or short necked bottles,you can use these smaller Plant Nannies.

 

You fill a large or small soda bottle with water, screw on the adapter, and slide the assembly into the terracotta.  From there is work the same as the bigger one.

The smaller ones can hold more water than the bigger ones because you can use 2-Liter bottles with them. But they are more awkward.  They spill more than they others.  And they leak more.  Plus they get a little wobbly. 

My plan for next year is to pick up more of the large wine-bottle plant nannies.  Instead of one per pot, I will will  do 2 or 3 per pot.  This should help keep the soil uniformly moist and accoodate my travel schedule well.  I'll also be adding the Plant Nannies at the same time I put pots in the plant.  This should make it easier to insert them and promote healthy root development.

I won't get any of the smaller, threaded ones.  They're just not worth the hassle when the other one are so easy.

I guess that means I have to drink more wine this winter.  Cheers!

Mount Helena in 1999

One of the great things about my old college campus was the view from the dorm.  I had a great view of Mount Helena outside my window for several years. 

When business took me back to Helena 10 years ago, I followed the trail up mountain and took a bunch of pictures along the way.  I shot them on Seattle Film Works film on my old Pentax K1000 SLR (that thing was tank).  When I got them developed, they also put them on a CD (crazy advanced technology in the late nineties). Somewhere along the line, I added them to Flickr.  A few of my favorites are below.  You can see the rest of them here.

 

Phonetic Alphabet

Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta (or David at the airport), Echo, Foxtrot...

Lately I found myself trying to remember the word substitutions for the letters of the alphabet.  Maybe it's the influence of Dollhouse (I still want to meet dolls Kilo, Uniform, and Whiskey). Or maybe it's because I'm tired of coming up with my own substitutions when I'm on the phone. But it's something I never needed to learn before and gave very little thought to.

So off I went to Wikipedia for a quick check.

That's always a mistake. There's no such thing as a quick check on Wikipedia.  It turns out the development of the NATO phonetic alphabet has a pretty interesting history.  There were debates and changes.  And it's impressive the system had survived largely intact over the years.

Except in CA, where the LAPD developed their own, and with other cities adopting the LAPD codes, it turns out to be a viable alternative.

When you're done with that, there's a fascinating article about Radio 10- codes.

If you find this at all interesting, spend some time in the Wikipedia articles.  There's all sorts of useless trivia to learn.

Shatner-Palooza: Nimoy on TJ Hooker

This is a 6 minute version of an episode of William Shatner's TJ Hooker.  Leonard Nimoy guest stars as Hooker's old partner.  About half way though, he gets to punch Shatner.  It's awesome to see the two of them together.

And you still get the whole story of the episode in just a few minutes.  Which demonstrates how little content is in many shows.

You can also see the video here.

Five things I don't like about the Wii Fit Plus

Wii Fit Plus is a great game/exercise program.  I've stuck with it for a month, and look forward to using it.  But it's not perfect.  Yesterday, I talked about Five things I like about the Wii Fit Plus.  Now it's time for the things I don't like.

1) Routine limits

It's great that the Plus let's you build your own routine from various strength training and yoga exercises, but that's all it let's you choose.  You can't add aerobic activities or balance games to your custom routines.  The system has some predefined routines with those features, so it doesn't make sense that you can't add your own.  I'd like to build my own one hour routine that starts with some balance games, adds yoga poses, moves on to strength training, goes into aerobics and then let's me close out with more balance games.

2) No routine scoring

When you run a routine that you build it moves from completion of one exercise to the start of the next.  The great thing is that it skips all the menu choosing.  That bad thing is that it also skips the scoring step.  It doesn't tell you how well you did or give you points at the end of the activity.  Seems silly, I know, but I want that feedback. 

3) No new slalom game. 

The slalom is my favorite balance game, but it's getting old.  I would have like it if the Plus included a new, longer version of that game.

4) The Balance Board is a little too small.

While it still works fine, it appears to be designed for those that do not wear a size 12 shoe (not that I'm wearing shoes on the board).  My feet extend beyond the preferred placement rectangles and sometimes my toes or heals are hanging off the edge.  It's needs to be about and inch or two bigger.

5) The dodge in the boxing game is too vague.

I can't seem to get this move right.  The graphic describing how to move the Wiimote and Nunchuck is confusing, and after a month of trial and error, I can't quite get this move right.  And I don't really know what I'm doing wrong.

So there are definitely some areas for improvement.  Despite that, I can easily recommend it.  It's a lot of fun, and it gets me moving.  And those are two very good things.

Five things I like about the Wii Fit Plus

Wii Fit Plus is Nintendo's latest exercise based computer program.  It works with the Wii Fit Balance Board so not only do you watch stuff on the screen, the system gives you feedback and, most importantly, a score.

Wii Fit Plus is sold as a sequel to Wii Fit.  It's actually more of a Service Pack.  Both of them sell for about $100.  The Plus however, is also available for $20 without the Balance Board, for users who already own one.

Here are five of the things I like about the Wii Fit Plus

1) It gives me a score.

I occasionally consider doing a push up or two in a hotel.  But the idea never lasts more than one day, or even 10 minutes.  The Wii Fit Plus, though, will score my performance on all the various Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobic, and Balance Game exercises.  Now, it's not about doing the exercises, it's about getting a higher score.  It's not about refining technique to improve workout efficiency, it's about doing all that to get a higher score.  Why does this matter to me?  I don't know.  But I need that metric.  And I need that competition against myself to do things a little better each day.  Losing weight isn't an incentive to do this.  Scoring better is.

2) It imports Wii Fit data flawlessly.

When I started it up the new version the first time, it easily imported my old data with absolutely no problems.


3) The end of day can be 3:00 AM.

Most games seem to define the end of day at midnight, just because that's when a day technically ends.  But I prefer to use it late at night.  The old version ended the day at midnight, so if I started playing with it at 11:30 PM and wrapped up at 12:30 it would think that was two separate days (because technically, it is) which was frustrating.  The new version let's me redefine the end of day to 3:00 AM.  It's much more accommodating of night owls like me.

4) Custom Routines

The Wii Fit Plus let's me pick from a bunch of different activities and the bundle them all together.  The nice thing about this is that when I do this, I don't have to go back to the menu after each exercise and choose the next one.  The game will just move from one to the next.


5) All the old games are in the new version

The Wii Fit Plus includes all the original exercises, games, and more from the original Wii Fit. The nice things about this is that I never have to choose which disc to put in. Everything is part of the new package. I can play the older games just as easily as the new one.

And with all these advantages, and using it 1-1.5 hours a day when I'm in Seattle, I should hit record scores in no time.  And maybe -- just maybe -- lose a pound or two.

 

Comcast and TiVo adventures

Last month, Comcast sent the latest notice that they were going to discontinue analog service for many cable channels.  Users who did not already have a digital conversion box would need to get a free one.

Last week they actually turned off some of the channels.  And that’s how The GF and I found ourselves at a Comcast service center in north Seattle.

We knew we were in for trouble when the signs pointed us to the overflow parking lot.  There were lines of customers stretching out the door.  It probably took about 25-30 minutes before we spoke to the rep.  She was pleasant, despite the teaming hordes of frustrated cable customers.

We left with a new cable box – the Motorola DCT-700.  It’s a nice, small box, but it was one glaring flaw – it has no serial connection. 

The GF has a TiVo.  Under the analog system, I could plug the cable input into the TiVo box, and use the TiVo as a Tuner.  TiVo could easily change the channel as needed.

That doesn’t work under digital cable.  With digital cable the cable box needs to change channels and then just send the video signal to TiVo.  That means TiVo needs to be able to tell the cable box what channel to tune to.

The cable box in my apartment has a port on the back so I can wire the TiVo directly to the cable box for changing the channel.  The GF’s new cable box does not have that port.  In order to change the channel, you have to use IR emitters. 

This device is a cable that runs from the TiVo box to two tiny light bulbs that simulates the remote control that came with the cable box.

And that’s where the problems began.  I setup the emitters, taped them to cable box, and went through the TiVo set up process.

The set up process is important because that’s where I have to teach TiVo how to talk to the DCT-700 (the cable box) because different cable boxes speak a slightly different language.

And for the next hour TiVo and I went through every conceivable remote code multiple times, trying to get the channel to change.  I Googled the configurations.  I read forums.  And had not luck.

In frustration, I dug through my collection of AV cables and tried a different emitter. And magically, it worked. So despite my internal swearing and thinking all sorts of nasty thoughts about Comcast, General Instruments, and Motorola, eventually it came down to a damaged 5 year old cable.

I’m just glad I didn’t call tech support.

Late Night Visitor

When it comes to ghosts and other supernatural critters, I'm skeptically open-minded.  By that I mean, I acknowledge the possibility that the souls of the departed sometimes wander yet on this side of the veil, but it's unlikely I'll believe any particular ghost story.  Except my Grandmother's. And, more importantly, my own.

When I was a sophomore in college, 19 years ago, I took the job of yearbook editor.  I learned a lot on that job.  Namely that I wasn't cut out to be a yearbook editor.  But I took the job, had deadlines to meet, and no matter how much I didn't want to do it, I had made the commitment and was going to live up to it.

The yearbook office was in St. Albert's Hall, a small building that was maybe 100' away from my dorm.  St Al's was the campus student activity center.  Level 1 had lounge space with a full kitchen, and level two was long, narrow coffin like offices.  It wasn't a lot of room, but it was enough.

Decades earlier, St. Al's was home to the nuns who used to work at the college.  Stories passed from student to student had it that one of them had hung herself in her room.  Did it actually happen?  I don't know.

What I do know is that if it did, I nearly met her.

Late one night, at about 3:00 AM, I was working on a bunch of layouts.  I was alone in the building; the front door was locked.  I sat in the upstairs office along the long hallway with my door open and the radio playing.

Step

Step

Step

Step

I heard someone walking down the hallway from the far end,  got up from my chair, and peeked my head out.  I was sure it was the night security guard just checking on things.  But no one was there.

I was shrugged my shoulders, figured it was nothing, and returned to my work.  I turned off the radio in case that's what I heard.  I pulled out a fresh sheet of layout paper.

Step

Step

Step

Step

This time the steps were closer.  They came from the middle of the hall.  "Hello?" I called out, but no one responded.  I got up, looked up and down the hall, and saw no one.  I stepped out of the office, and took a quick look around downstairs.

No one.

By now, I was getting a little nervous.  I could sense the goose bumps just below the surface of my skin.  But I was still alone, and there was work to be done.  I sat down at the desk and tried to focus.

Step

STEP

Definitely closer now.  Definitely not some animal or rodent in the building. And when I looked out, there was still no one in the hall. 

I sat at the desk and began collecting my things.  I figured I should probably go to bed soon since I was having trouble focusing, what with the phantom walker in the hall.

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

The mystery walker slowly walked right past my open door! 

I had no doubt these were footsteps, but still they came from nothing.  Now officially scared and making the sign of the cross, I grabbed my stuff, and got the heck out of there. 

I barely remember shutting off the lights.  I don't remember walking to my dorm; I have just flashes of the lobby in my memory.  The next thing I knew I was back in my dorm room, my heart rate starting to fall back below 500 beats per minute. 

And I never encountered that dead nun again.  But for whatever reason, that one night, she decided to check up on me. It would be a few weeks before I spent another really late night in that building.

There may be a rational explanation.  And I know few people will believe this story.  They/you are right to be skeptical.  But if I close my eyes, I can still here those steps coming down the hall.

If you've made it this far, I hope I haven't caused you any nightmares.  If you want more scary stuff, here's Jonathan Coulton's Creepy doll.  Listen and enjoy. If you dare.

Changes for Heroes?

It's been a long day, and I'm a little slow on my TiVo fast forward button.  I had to actually watch a commercial.  It would have been appalling under most circumstances, but this, well.  This was different.

Sure, it was still appalling, but for a different reason.  This commercial featured a shockingly exuberant Greg Grundberg, better known to many as Matt Parkman, the powerful telepath from Heroes. Grundberg was bouncing around the stage of a game show promoting the McDonald's Monopoly game.

So does this "in your face" ad mean that Grundberg is leaving Heroes?  Or does it mean he looked at the ratings and realized he was not going to retire on this show?

Or did he look at upcoming scripts and think being a fake game show host for McDonalds was his only chance to preserve some dignity or acting integrity.

Or is this just the latest indignity Sylar is inflicting on poor Matt Parkman?

One of the annoying things about Heroes is that they take the characters with the most potent powers -- the greatest potential to have a major change for the better (Matt Parkman and Hiro Nakamura) and just strip them down, humiliate them, or play them for comic relief. They are squandering some great opportunities with these characters.

Maybe switching to McDonalds isn't such a bad idea.

A comment from a NW Connection Flight Attendant

I boarded the a small plane for my connection out of MSP yesterday and clambered to my seat in the far back corner.  It was a regional jet so it's not like all the way back is that far back.  But  I got there and scrunched myself into the corner, lauding silently the comfort of using a scrunched up sweatshirt as a makeshift pillow against the plastic wall.  That's the real reason to travel with a sweatshirt on a plane.  The impromptu pillow uses.  That and by wearing it, it makes is less likely people will talk to you then when you dress business casual, but that's another matter.

As I waited to drift off to a fitful sleep for the next 45 minutes, the Flight Attendant gave her safety speech, which I could probably recite from memory at this point.  And then, just as we were getting ready to take off, gave us the other important piece of information:

"Ladies and gentlemen, you'll be happy to know that neither of our pilots are asleep, arguing, or using their laptop computers."

Thanks for the update, NW!

HWY 99 potential collapse

Seattle has an elevated roadway that runs along the downtown water front.  It was contructed with state of the art budgets decades ago.  That means it's loud, ugly, and dangerous.  It sustained serious damage in the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake and, while it's still open to traffic, it needs to be replaced.

Seattle's pathetic track record on civil engineering continues to rear it's head.  After the quake, everyone agreed something needed to me done. It's not just the Viaduct at stake, but also the seawall that prevents downtown from flooding.

So the people of Seattle and the state of Washington talked about it.

And talked about it.

And talked about it.

And reached a decision.

And talked about it some more.

Finally, it looks like the decisions are in place, but what to do about those decisions is once again popping up in the Mayor's race.

What it comes down to is you can't get real, quality infrastructure in place with the excessive democracy we have in this city.  Somebody needs to stop listening to the people and just build something.

I favor the expensive tunnel option of a few years ago, and even the new, smaller tunnel option that is the likely replacement.  It's not worth it to cheap out.  And by building now, in a recession, labor and material are cheaper.  Financing for the city  cheaper.  Now is exactly the time to spend on infrastructure.

But if that doens't happen, I'll be satisfied if we just take some action already.

Our Light Rail system is years behind schedule, not because of the bureaucrats can't run it effectively, but because we have to keep stopping and revisiting already made decisions.  Our Monorail project won in three elections in the space of 7 years, and was cancelled in a fourth election because I guess we weren't Really Really Really sure.

What the coolest thing to come out of this civic paralysis?  The DOT makes awesome disaster simulations. They did this for the SR520 floating bridge (pretty much the same rant).Here is their demonstration of what will happen to the Viaduct in the next earthquake.