Al Petterson

A funny

2008-07-02T17:55:43Z

This came from newsfromme.com via one of the blogs I read (eschaton or somebody). Video of a song from Woodstock, very mildly NSFW (except that you'll also laugh a whole lot).

Appealing to the intertubes

2008-07-02T16:46:19Z

So. We missed taping the season finale of a few shows we watch. I find them on bittorrent and get them (I am a bad person and do not support megalithic media empires by downloading their free copies instead).

Now I have .avi files. I have a freeware .avi player I downloaded. I can see and hear shows fine.

Spouse doesn't like tiny screen on laptop. Wants to watch on TV. Bought cable to attach TV to computer. Figured out connection easily enough (laptop autochanges resolution when I attach it, but that's okay, if weird).

Fire up freeware player. Get video on laptop, black window on TV.

Weird. But not defeated. Yet.

Try Quicktime. (I have QT but the freeware player is lighter and runs better on my low-horsepower laptop when other stuff is also running.)

Quicktime hangs about half the times I try to invoke it. Eventually get it to open file.

Quicktime dithers, but eventually says I'm missing a codec. I tell it to go look. It opens my browser and goes to a page where with one click I can attempt to download the Apple version of the codec. Not what I want.

Poke around. Find codec for Windows. Download it. It installs new software, new stuff on Start menu. Have no clue what it is.

Quicktime now loads the file and begins "playing", but there is no audio and no video.

Will next go to soulless corporate media site and see if videos are available there, and if they will download to laptop and play on TV. But gosh this codec stuff is awful.

Bang bang

2008-06-26T16:19:03Z

When Bush was elected, my reaction overall could be boiled down to "I think this is going to be terrible -- for the economy, for the environment, for the world. But many people I respect, to some degree, disagree. After the manner of a scientist, I now get to see the experiment run and find out if I was wrong."

It seems like I get to say that a lot.

I get to say it again today. The Supreme Court has made a 2nd Amendment ruling. Perhaps this will not increase the number of violent crimes. I think it will, but after the manner of a scientist, I now get to watch the experiment run and find out if I was wrong.

There are reasons to think I might be wrong, even if my underlying assumption (that availability of guns has a causative correlation with amount of violent crime) is not incorrect: it's not like it's actually difficult to buy a gun, most places, as it is. I note that it is easier to buy a gun in the South than in the rest of the country, and the South does have a higher murder rate than the rest of the country, but perhaps the conservatives are correct when they claim that that's just because people in the South are intrinsically violent and stupid, not that they have more access to guns.

So. What I really want is for people not to be killed or criminally threatened (whether with guns or with, say, television sets). What I really don't care about, at least in the abstract, is the number of guns that happen to be around that don't ever get used for crimes. (I think the argument that more guns do not cause more crime is as specious as the argument that since I can personally drive my car without an accident, increasing the number of cars on the road does not lead to more accidents. But others believe differently. Maybe they're right.)

Therefore, I will fervently hope, now, that I am wrong.

(There is also the argument that more guns will mean more crime, but that this is a worthwhile price to pay for living in a society that maintains well-regulated militias protecting it from being invaded -- that being the reason the 2nd Amendment gives to justify itself. I will give that argument every single bit of respect that it deserves.)

Violent crime descended sharply when Clinton was president. Presumably, since Clinton did not get any credit for this, Obama will not get the blame if violent crime increases while he's president. Presumably, pigs fly.

Phantom Of The Opera

2008-06-07T08:11:39Z

I assume it's not a spoiler to post a review of it. Still...

If you could put that sucker up on a jack and run a plot in under it, you'd have a durn good musical there.

It's probably Webber's best music. And I'm a fan of JCSS, Evita, and Cats -- but the music for this show is stunningly pretty.

But it might help the plot's comprehensibility if it didn't involve as many as six different people all singing different lines at the same time. Would also help if the orchestra wasn't so loud that the performers had to screech operatically at all times, meaning that their diction was shot to hell and I could never tell if the pretty songs had pretty words.

But the set was gorgeous and the music was gorgeous and maybe there was a plot I just missed.

Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and...

2008-06-04T17:33:22Z

Any Clinton supporter who is at all tempted to...
- not work their butt off for Obama
- not vote for Obama
- vote for McCain

(to descend the circles of perdition, more or less) needs to be handed a copy of John Paul Stevens' birth certificate, preferably on the original papyrus.

Throwing cold water

2008-05-17T17:39:32Z

So. What does it take to repeal a constitutional amendment in California? Just a majority vote on a proposition? Tbat's how we get constitutional amendments to begin with, yes?

Or is it supermajority? I direct this question to those who know more California law than me. If anyone has a friend of a friend who can answer this definitively, I'd like to know.

It will have a lot to do with whether I celebrate this six-month period when we briefly have marriage equality, before the November constitutional amendment shuts it down definitively. Can we get the amendment repealed as soon as the state finishes converting 13% who voted in favor of a gay marriage ban five years ago but have to change their minds to overturn a ban now? Or does Prop 13 screw with this?

Is this connected?

2008-05-06T17:15:40Z

So I was listening to the opening repetitive pattern of Holst's Mars, and for some reason I was also thinking of the opening notes to Styx's Grand Illusion. And I realized they were interestingly similar.

So just for fun I listened to the rest of the tracks of each album.

Huh.

The frenetic opening synthesizer in Fooling Yourself was more than a little like Mercury, though the meter is different... the "You And I" long notes in Superstars reminded me a little of Venus... Miss America, though faster than Saturn, still had some similar chords and themes... the minor key and loud chords of Man In The Wilderness paralleled those in Uranus... the quiet reflective nature of Castle Walls was very much like Neptune...

There's not much to say about Come Sail Away and Jupiter beyond the fact that when you hear either one, your reaction is "dude, this song pwnz". Still.

Am I just having a 70s drug flashback despite having taken no drugs? I must be... because if there were more to this than a completely coincidental rude mapping that no one sees but me, someone else would have pointed it out years ago. And there's nothing that seems to connect Holst and Styx in Google beyond a lot of people having both in their personal CD collections.

So am I just making connections where there is none?

"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

2008-05-02T16:24:52Z

...so you're scared, and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young any more...

...when you call me, you can call me Al...

...though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true...

...children growing up, old friends growing older...

...but I'm in it till it's over, and I just can't stop...

...welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

...well, I got up this morning, I don't need to know no more...

...catch your magic moment, do it right here and now...

...I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise...

...the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems...

...well show a little faith!

eyelessgame @ 2008-05-01T15:36:00

2008-05-01T22:38:00Z

Iron Man - May 2
Speed Racer - May 9
Prince Caspian - May 16
Indiana Jones - May 22
Hulk - Jun 13
Get Smart - Jun 20
Wall-E - Jun 27
Hellboy - Jul 11
Dark Knight - Jul 18

Now this was way too much of a hoot

2008-05-01T19:26:07Z

Faux News was discussing Clinton's suggestion that she and Obama engage in some unmoderated "Lincoln-Douglas" debates. So of course Faux needed to put up a related graphic. Click on 'Read more'. Really. You won't believe it.

there are no words.

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-18T11:35:00

2008-04-18T22:01:01Z

Bleat. Meme. Nicked from liralen.

This is Alology, or perhaps iMageology.

TECHNOLOGYISH
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?

At work it's a picture of a galaxy seemingly being eaten by a much smaller and closer dust cloud.

At home it used to be a map of the Midnight Ocean (for puzzlepirates) but that computer has been laid to rest, and I haven't found the right one for my home work computer.

Q. How many televisions you have in your house?

Which way do you count? Two televisions (that receive programs), three VCRs, five DVD players (two hooked up to aforementioned TVs, two portables with their own screens, one that only works sorta), plus two computers that can play DVDs.

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?

Left-handed, therefore in my right mind. Like my eponymous grandfather, my older son's eponymous greatuncle, and my younger son.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?

Once had a bone splinter from my tibia work itself to the surface and eventually come out through the skin, and have had wisdom teeth removed. Gall bladder and spleen and appendix and all those other random organs still there.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?

The bag of equipment for Little League, to put it back in the car after yesterday's game... no, wait, the pallet of bottled water I hauled in from the car this afternoon.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?

No - in fact I have a fairly unreasoning fear of unconsciousness.

BULLSHITOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?

No freakin' way.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?

I'm too attached to this one at this point. I like that people misspell it an mispronounce it; it makes me memorable and starts conversations.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?

Um, Sherilyn should answer that. I wear clothes so that I'm not naked.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?

One assumes the question doesn't count trivial intentional things like pills. I think so - hairs and such, probably a couple bugs. Never done so deliberately to my recollection.

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?

Not for $100, but for a good reason (theater, friend needing it, good joke punchline), sure.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?

No. Need it for piano. (I could cope with not having it for typing.)

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?

Probably. I don't actually blog that much. I think I'd want a lot more than that not to be able to user the internet ever again.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?

*snort* Sure. I am not sure I'd want to know anyhting about the kind of magazine for which that picture would boost circulation, though.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000?

Not for $1000. Probably not for any reason, considering that I take medication to control acid reflux and it could probably seriously damage me. ($1000 is too low to consider something excruciating-but-harmless at this point; I have enough money that that amount doesn't tempt me much. $100K might. And non-monetary reasons might.)

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?

I cannot think of an exception to "no". I could imagine a life path that would end with me working as a state executioner, I suppose, but I'd be quite a different person if I'd reached that point.

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?

Wallet and cellphone in front pocket. Knife/pliers/etc multiobject in back pocket.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?

I feel comfortable saying no without actually having seen it.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?

Dirty carpet that we'll replace in a few years.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?

People sit in the shower?

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?

I own two. The family owns dozens.

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?

A host system at nvidia telling me a broken build had been fixed. Oh... person? I got a couple of wrong-number texts once.

Q: Last person who called you?

Sherilyn, thanking me for going out to deliver creamer for to her at moms group.

Q: Person you hugged?

Hm, Josh, I think, though it could have been any of the kids.

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?

I think I'll say 42, because I'm about to turn it. Maybe there's a second reason, I dunno.

Q: Season?

Wow. I'm kind of an indoor person. Summer is great except for the heat, because the kids don't have school. Since we have air conditioning I'll say summer.

Q: Color?

I have declared green to be my favorite color ever since Tech, because of the house I lived in. I must confess that I like things in all colors and no particular color tends to catch my eye more than any other.

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?

Yah. (1) my dad; (2) my wife and myself at age 25.

Q: Mood?

Reasonably happy.

Q: Listening to?

Rush, on random play -- at the moment it's 'Turn The Page'.

Q: Watching?

At the moment my computer. We watch way too much TV, if that's the intent of the question.

Q: Worrying about?

Kids - is Josh feeling okay for being less athletic than most of the boys in softball? Is Kate overstressed and overscheduled? Is Robert learning enough life skills? And that there's too much going on, as usual. And the normal worries and stresses of life, many of which are private.

Q: Wearing?

Stuff so that I'm not naked. I think an '3V1L L33T' shirt and shorts at the moment.

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?

Walked Kate and Robert to school.

Q: What can you not wait to do?

Game on Saturday, if we have people. Start the Ptolus campaign. Take Kate to interesting geology this summer. Celebrate Obama's inauguration next January. Attend the next star party. Play Robert's Star Wars game. Play Kate's D&D adventure. Run D&D for the kids. The next time I kiss my wife. The next time I hug my children.

I can wait for them to grow up, though.

Q: Do you smile often?

Fairly often. I try to.

Q: Are you a friendly person?

Ask my friends and family, not me. I hope I am. I'm a tad aspergery and often miss friendship cues, and have difficulty with small talk.

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-15T17:43:00

2008-04-16T00:51:54Z

This is the transcript of the original speech that Will.I.Am set to music. The WaPo has the speech video online but they cut the most moving words from it (fortunately they're in the music video).

I know a little more than a little about American history. I have listened to a lot of speeches. And to my mind, this one should stand as a classic; one of the all-time greatest speeches by an American politician. It's simple, it's moving, and dammit this is why I'm an American.

But the reason our campaign has always been different, the reason we began this improbable journey almost a year ago, is because it's not just about what I will do as president. It is also about what you, the people who love this country, the citizens of the United States of America, can do to change it.

That's what this election is all about.

That's why tonight belongs to you. It belongs to the organizers, and the volunteers, and the staff who believed in this journey and rallied so many others to join the cause.

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.

We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can.

Yes, we can, to justice and equality. Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.

And so, tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to the crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A., we will remember that there is something happening in America, that we are not as divided as our politics suggest, that we are one people, we are one nation.

And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea:

Yes, we can.

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-13T10:51:00

2008-04-13T17:51:35Z

It's pretty cool that humans actually went to the trouble of making these things just so I could look at them a couple thousand years later.

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-12T10:44:00

2008-04-12T18:01:36Z

Inspired by yessod to post my own connection to Americana.

Both sides of my family came through Ellis Island within 15 years of 1900 - I have found my entire mom's side of the family (it is interesting to note how much one's family tree starts not forking once you go back about a hundred years), as well as my paternal grandfather and great-grandfather, from the EI online data.

If my mom's family had any Mafia connections, they're not telling. But their old family photos sure make it look like they did. I guess any sepia-toned pictures of Italian-American families looking stern and serious would pretty much look that way.

My dad fought the Battle of Waukegan as a member of the National Guard, keeping the North Koreans away from the shores of Lake Michigan. As far as I can tell, you have to go back to the Vikings before you find my male-line ancestors actually involved in shooting (or, well, hacking) wars.

My paternal grandparents were influential in the Salvation Army, and once gave money and support to the KKK, since those were after all good god-fearing folk. Both of which are significant pieces of Americana in their own way.

My dad hitchhiked across the country in the late 1940s and was picked up and driven through Texas for a bit by Lyndon Johnson. My mom was the treasurer for the pretty-much-hopeless Democratic candidate for Congress in our district for two elections in the 1970s. The father of my best friend in high school ran for the same seat in 1980.

My high school civics teacher regaled the class with a story about me sitting on his lap in 1968 (when I was all of two) explaining cogently why he should vote for Humphrey instead of Nixon.

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-11T09:26:00

2008-04-11T16:28:36Z

"About a third of Clinton supporters say they'd back McCain over Obama, and about a quarter of Obama supporters say they'd back McCain over Clinton."

Holy flying $#@#^. I realize some of that is just campaign rhetoric that'll be forgotten by November, but holy flying $#@#^, who the hell thinks like that? "Obama's preacher said some rude things, so I'm going to vote for four more years of insane and ruinous policies -- that'll teach him!"

eyelessgame @ 2008-04-03T23:36:00

2008-04-04T06:40:53Z

I've read somewhere that we actually have 4, not 3, sorts of rock - that meteoric rock, despite its compositional similarity to igneous rock, counts as a different rock type.

So my question is whether we really stop at four. Amber, coral, pearl, petrified wood, ivory, kidney stones. Do these count as igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, or "not rocks"? Are there any geologists or amateur geologists who bother to classify these?

How about concrete? Are chunks of concrete considered "rock"? Hardened mud from archaeological digs?

Is there anyone who retorts "meteoric, organic, synthetic" to "igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic"?

eyelessgame @ 2008-03-21T22:47:00

2008-03-22T05:49:24Z

Back. Read silkiemom's journal for lots and lots of trip blogging.

I might have some sensible things to say on rosevilleptolus tomorrow.

eyelessgame @ 2008-03-04T10:32:00

2008-03-04T18:33:40Z

Page 2 of my 1st Edition Players Handbook is signed by E. Gary Gygax, when I met him at Winter Fantasy '82.

My life would have been very very different if he and Dave Arneson had not wondered what their miniatures were doing between battles.

requiescat in pace, dungeon master.

Stark

2008-02-28T18:47:41Z

from Brad DeLong.

eyelessgame @ 2008-02-26T15:30:00

2008-02-26T23:31:07Z

Suppose I wanted to set up a small community to discuss Ptolus with people who might be in a ptolus campaign (for example space_parasite, marith, silkiemom, diony, yessod, and dave). How would I reasonably set such a thing up and make it accessible to those people, and bring it to their attention, and allow them to post to it too?

The Phantom Toolbooth

2008-02-23T17:45:57Z

This was my favorite childrens' book.

I just finished reading it to Robert. It's supposed to be "for eight and up" based on the simple language style, but I don't know any eight-year-old who would catch all the idiomatic wordplay and cultural reference in it.

He adored it, and even more than the humor (very Lewis Carroll-like), he appreciated the wisdom tucked away in various places, about the value of knowledge, the point of learning, the importance of engaging with the world around him, and the power of imagination in service to those goals. He volunteered in several places that it really made good points.

I so love this book. I'm reading it to Kate once she finishes rereading the seventh Harry Potter -- she'll have to stretch more than Robert did, and will have to have a lot of things explained. I might try to casually drop some of the idioms used and abused in the book into conversations with her in the next few weeks.

(For example, think of how much you have to understand to appreciate why it is that a collector of unpleasant sounds would have a smoke-cloud servant living in a bottle whose name is the Awful DYNNE. Or why it's funny, on meeting half a young boy (the left half), he would say "Oh, we're just the average family: mom, dad, 2.58 kids.")

"John" McCain

2008-02-21T16:50:37Z

It's completely irrelevant to anything relating to the performance of one's duties as president whether said president has had affairs.

So, for all my conservative friends who insisted that in Clinton's case it wasn't the sex, it was the perjury trap, I will assure you that I don't care whether McCain had sex with that woman. (He did, of course, have sex with his second wife while still married to his first, but that's not relevant either, so I don't see why anyone should mention that he repeatedly cheated on his first wife, or married his second only a month after divorcing his first. Shouldn't matter to anybody. Don't even bring it up.)

No, what matters, of course, are the inappropriate favors he did for his cute little lobbyist-Friday and her clients. It's not the sex, it's the prostitution.

"John" McCain.

"I am older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein"

2008-02-11T22:02:07Z

Just to scare all of you.

It suddenly hit me, watching Huckabee's statement a few days ago that he's staying in the race, exactly why he's staying. It's not for 2012, or the vice presidency, or hoping that Romney's delegates mean a brokered convention, or out of an impossible dream that he'll get, what, 113% of the remaining delegates and win. It's none of those.

It's that the Republican national convention is in September. This is only February. He said "This is politics. Anything can happen." Yah.

F'rinstance. The probability of a 72-year-old man, with a history of physical trauma and cancer, dying in the next six months is appreciably greater than zero. The probability that he will be struck by some debilitating illness (stroke? major heart condition?) is probably higher, and thus also appreciably greater than zero. And quite apart from that: there are a lot of whackos out there who dislike McCain a whole lot more than I do. And many of them listen to Dobson or Malkin or Limbaugh, and many of them are armed.

Who knows, maybe Huckabee's heard God tell him he'd better stay in the race. Just in case.

Because -- if something (and -- I mean this honestly -- may God forbid) happens to McCain before September, Huckabee would be the last man standing. Certainly the now-unpledged delegates at the convention would face a most interesting problem.

Equal time

2008-02-11T17:06:24Z

In the interests of fairness, they made one for the other guy, too, and I should give equal time... (do watch Obama's -- my previous entry -- first, though.)

¡cientos años!

Si, se puede

2008-02-04T21:01:51Z