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ABOUT zwarg.blog CATEGORIES MAIN ARCHIVES 1999(14) [+] 2000(3) [+] 2001(4) [+] 2002(18) [+] 2003(159) [+] 2004(108) [+] 2005(129) [+] 2006(38) [+] 2007(23) [+] 2008(8) [+] 2009(8) [+]United States vs. Iraq
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Wednesday, December 23 2009
On the way up to Maine, we boarded a train with a wreath lashed to the front of the locomotive. "Just like the Polar Express", my wife says. Tuesday, December 22 2009Happy Winter Solstice. Now the days get longer. Unfortunately at a snail's pace, but longer nonetheless. Saturday, December 12 2009I have been off the radar. I'll use my first post back in a bit to let all my peeps (yes, both of you) know this one very important snippet: We got our first Christmas tree today. Sunday, August 02 2009At the national Urban League conference in Chicago, it was said that the "Beer Summit" wasn't the end, it was the beginning. This coverage on NPR seems to say as much: npr.org. A conversation about race is one that needs to happen between friends, at work, at home, on the playground, in the pub, at the gym, in the street. Openly and honestly. It's time. Thursday, February 19 2009
The Credit Crisis, For You And Me
I hadn't understood what happened in the "Credit Crises", but now it seems to make sense -- at least in a logical sense, still not an ethical one. The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo Wednesday, January 28 2009
Iced Over
I wanted/needed a tool that I could use to align a large time series together in short order. I haven't worked with GTK before, and I already wrote an auto-correlator in python, so I took a stab at writing a simple application in PyGTK. The whole python script is available here: aligner_py. You will need python and pygtk installed, obviously. Thursday, January 15 2009It started as an HP LaserJet IIIp that I found on the street corner. I thought to myself: I bet there's a lot of cool stuff in there. I hauled it on my shoulder to work, and set myself to task at the end of the day. This was the process of dissecting the unit:
-take down the front panel All in all, it took about 2 hours. The coolest part was the fiber channel that ran from the main electronic control board into the laser optics assembly. There are some really great optics, and a great compliment of gears. A small haul, considering how much of it ended up in the trash, but it was fun. Friday, November 21 2008 One helluva collection of images, and a fun look at them, too. Like a lightbox and a lupe. Takes me back to college. Yikes. Wednesday, November 05 2008 Best said by Reed: "hooooooooooooooooooooooonk. yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah. wooooooooooo. repeat" Tuesday, November 04 2008 Go out and do it. Thursday, October 30 2008 The curse is gone. Take that Billy. The Phillies won the world series. But you know that already, don't you? The scene aphter was craaaaazy. I watched the 3 inning closer at M&T's, and began celebrating there. We could whoop phrom the back patio, and hear people in the tower at 8th and Walnut whooping back. Cars honking incessantly in the streets, accompanied by cheering. We headed to broad street, and joined the thousands oph people already there. It had been maybe 30 minutes since the win. The crowds were banging pots and high-phiving and chest bumping and hugging. As we worked our way through the crowd, we saw people climbing the lampposts and pulling down the Phillies banners. People were on top oph all the bus shelters, magazine stands, anything that could be stood upon was stood upon. We made it up to Chestnut, where the crowd was impassible, so we cut over and around to Suburban Station. Coming out oph the station at City Hall, you could see the massive crowds everywhere, still partying. The blocks around City Hall were jammed with people, and the only traphic getting through was phrom Market to N Broad. We headed back home avoiding Broad Street. The streets were less packed, but the phans were all over, still just as happy to chest-bump you or slap your palm. By the time I made it home, my hands tingled phrom so many slaps. It was an amazing party, and I'm surprised that there wasn't more mayhem. It was mostly a lot oph people in a euphoric state. Somethin' else. Let's do this more ophten -- every 25 years is just too long. Thursday, October 23 2008 Been off the blog for a bit. What's new? A great deal of work, which is rewarding. One of the things that I'm starting to get curious about are obscure programming languages. Like erlang, and now boo! There are quite a few good diagrams and timelines of languages, and I find it fascinating, kind of like looking at an old map. Who knows what kinds of people and events surrounded the development of any of these wild languages... there's got to be some lore there somewhere. Yeah, and some linkage: Wednesday, March 19 2008
What Would A Real Race Conversation Look Like?
A short apology: I am but a grasshopper on a journey. Yesterday, my wife sent me a link to Obama's speech on race. I since found it on his campaign site, as well as others. It got me thinking. This conversation is one that we need to have with each other, our families, and our friends. I think that it says something that someone in the establishment is saying this. I understand that he is not "The Man" yet (although I'm starting to think that wouldn't be a bad idea), but coming from a United States Senator, he is pretty well a part of the establishment. So I haven't formed my thoughts completely on this, but I did have a pretty strong reaction to the media coverage given to the speech. I was at the gym this morning, and some commentator on CNN was talking with the editor of the Washington Post. The conversation the two was such a superficial glossing of the topic, that it made me angry. I don't remember the conversation exactly, so some of this is paraphrasing:
Saturday, March 08 2008
Today is a rainy day. Yesterday was a taxing, emotional day, and today is a good day to recover. Puttering around the house and with Processing, it's turning out to be alright. A little bit of excitement in our house was the arrival (or guest appearance) of a Red Tailed Hawk. We named him Angel (because that's how we roll). My desk faces east, and I can see a couple neighbor's houses, and a smokestack or exhaust pipe from the diner on the corner. I looked out there after a bunch of coding, and saw this bird sitting on top of the pipe. I thought, "That's one big pigeon," to myself. I stopped what I was doing, and looked again. He looks like the second one down here: All About Birds. I dug out my binoculars, and took a closer look. I saw his hooked beak, and knew he was anything but a pigeon. In my excitement, I called to my wife, and she took a turn looking at him, while I ran to get my book, "Birds of North America". It took a lot of page flipping and looking back and forth between the binoculars and the book, until I made up my mind that he was what he was. A couple times, he turned to preen his feathers, and I could see his white belly and striped tail. He's a handsome fella. The rain has been coming and going, and just a few minutes ago, he spread out his wings to dry them off in the afternoon sun. He looked kind of silly, with his wings stretched out, but pointed down at angles. Like he was in mid-flight. (As I was writing that last paragraph, he spread his wings, and let the wind pick him off the pipe, and off he went.) Godspeed, fella. Wednesday, February 20 2008
Another little dribble from Philly: two signs that I've seen around town. The first is posted outside a power sub-station near my house. The second is in the window of a new coffee shop on my walk to work.
Wednesday, November 28 2007
As will become moot soon, Google has added 'Terrain' to Google Maps. This is cool. I also like the cartography of the shaded relief. I decided to do some spot checking, and it seems their data is more than a few years old. For example: Shoup glacier right outside of Port Valdez, has been receding for years. Look at this flickr photo: Shoup Glacier from above I checked out Earth and Maps, and they both show the glacier at its current position. What is interesting is that the terrain is decades old. Okay, I'm the only one who finds this interesting. I only know because I've been there -- what else is missing? Tuesday, November 27 2007
I kind of lost the steam to keep blogging. I don't know why, I've just been trying to manage my own things, in this big real world. Also, I've been writing in a journal for the past year, and trying to keep it going. It's strange how keeping that going seems to sap any energy I have to write in this space. Or even participate. Nobody wants to hear me pontificate, anyway. Friday, September 28 2007 
One word: Iran Can we please backdafukup for one second here? via nytimes.com
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