What with one thing and another, I hadn't gotten a chance to make challah since the Girlz 2.0 started laying in September.
As noted earlier, our homegrown eggs have an "eggier" taste than battery-raised when scrambled. The difference is even more pronounced in baking: three medium eggs (and one for glaze) in a two loaf batch were almost too rich! Yep, sure is tough around here.
So far, the Girlz 2.0 don't like onions, garlic and stale pumpernickel bagel. Beef fat sets off a scrum; yesterday's blueberry oatmeal is still a treat.

Danger Lad! has woken up crying five times so far tonight. This latest time, he complained of a stuffed up nose (which I definitely observed) and said his head hurt. I have administered Tylenol, and hope it works its customary magic. I have also petted his head, remade his bed, found him his bear, tucked him back in and rubbed his back. I'm not sure if this is an aftereffect of the H1N1 shot he got Thursday or some other thing (including, possibly, a middle of the night bid for attention and snuggles).

Bah. Humbug.

Now to get the darn thing through the Senate. I've been finishing-up Bob Barr's book on the Impeachment of Clinton "The meaning of 'Is'" and am at the chapter on getting this trial through the Senate who poo poo'd the whole thing, gutting most/all of the REAL charges against Clinton. It is hauntingly sad to read the blow by blow, hence I hold scant hope for the bill but at least Dr. Paul found a way to get it moving, with out w/o the 300+ sponsors.
-----------------------------------
The House Financial Services Committee has approved Rep. Ron Paul’s measure to drastically expand the government’s power to audit the Federal Reserve.

The measure, based on a Paul proposal that has attracted more than 300 co-sponsors, passed, 43-26, as an amendment to a financial reform bill. Florida Democrat and fellow Fed critic Alan Grayson co-sponsored the amendment with Paul and played a leading role drumming up support for it among committee members. The adoption of this amendment is an extraordinary victory for Paul, whose libertarian, anti-Fed leanings have often been dismissed by the political establishment.


The amendment would give the Government Accountability Office much greater to audit the Federal Reserve, which has a long history of independence from congressional audits. Paul and Grayson beat out a competing measure offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), who after weeks of negotiations with the pair felt their measure would threaten the Fed’s monetary policy.


This is a big victory in our effort to get an audit of the private central bank that is destroying this country. The people are tired, and action is starting to be taken thanks to Ron Paul.

Here is Congressman Paul's introduction of the amendment:

• 12:28 @rich_davey gl and the very best of luck #
• 13:09 @rich_davey not nearly enough casinos :) #
• 16:17 @schmengie safe trip! #
• 18:27 @sjsharktank well at least you aren't going to see an 82-76 snoozer (okay maybe that's the halftime score) #
• 19:27 @scsuhockey10 I have a funny feeling the majority of that table will be tweet enabled lol #
• 19:58 Amusing randomness - PS player name: "deadmoney". My note on him: "the name says it all" #
• 19:58 @sjsharktank I am jealous though - Portland's an interesting team (when healthy). I'm watching Memphis Sixers for now....its painful. #
• 20:12 @sjsharktank I'm not a big fan of LW as PG (or Brand at all). Yeah, I got back into NBA during the run ya'll had up to and beating Dallas.. #
• 20:13 @sjsharktank so its a shame for me watching too - its just ugly. I had league pass the prior 2 seasons, so I watched em quite often #
• 21:56 @cgonzo368 I'll get there what I consider early. Not sure when but shouldn't be bad. I've beaten u to taj a few times when I tried :) #

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OTCAMP: A Life pattern which simulates any outer-totalistic cellular automata, including Life itself.

Each simulated cell is 2048x2048 cells large. With Golly you can run fairly large-sized patterns... but, it's only feasible to run with the HashLife algorithm, which cheats by memoizing the evolution of Life patterns rather than simulating every cell. Golly includes a few patterns using OTCAMP as samples.

(I totally need to upload my PokerStars icon here, if I can remember where I put it...)

I have given in to the Dark Side.

I am getting a Kindle.

A really good price (available through a friend) and the promise of instantly adjusting font size (to deal with my highly variable and massively annoying eyes) have lured me into a decision I was considering in only the vaguest and most distant sense of the word a week ago.

Having made this decision, I am now getting rather excited about it. Good things I expect to come from owning a Kindle include:

- Freedom from phone envy. I have the simplest, cheapest cell phone I could find in the entire store. I do not regret this decision -- it is all I need, and the monthly fee for a data plan would be far from worth it for the few times a month I might check my email in some random location during a moment of idleness. But there are times when, surrounded by playing children busy with their own society and 3G-phone-checking adults, I can get a bit of phone envy. Now I will have a small electronic device I can tuck in my purse and peruse at such times, without the extravegant monthly fees. The longer battery life is nice, too -- I don't like having to plug things in frequently.
- A wireless Wikipedia connection. The kids often ask weird random questions while we are away from home, and while promising to look it up when we get home will get me off the hook for an immediate answer, we usually all forget the question by the time we actually are home.
- A way to read at least some books, enough that I should always be able to find something I want to read that's available on it, that I can carry with me, on which I can adjust the font size. There should always be something around that's comfortable to read and worthwhile.
- A Bible with a font size I can read that is light enough for me to be willing to carry it everywhere in my purse.

Things I do not expect to happen include:
- This will not replace our adult paper book collection. This is partly a matter of replacement cost, partly a matter of availability -- Amazon has a stated goal of having available every book ever published, but they're pretty far from that still; those books that are available are mostly new or recent releases, or old books no longer under copyright -- and partly a matter of preference. I still like paper books.
- This will not touch our collection of children's books. From my perspective, they have not even started to touch the issues related to children's books. Illustrations are key in children's books, and they have not tackled the issues of color (although I'm sure there are a multitude of scientists and engineers slaving away on addressing this issue right now), screen size (most children's books are much larger, in the 9"x12" range, and the most visually enticing of them utilize a two-page spread in their illustrations), or replacement cost (no way am I handing my Kindle to J). This is not surprising -- text-only adult books, with the occasional grey-scale picture, are much easier to tackle, and so are a logical first step -- but it does mean that while the technology may get there some day, it simply hasn't done so yet.

Things about the Kindle I think are stupid:
- You cannot give a Kindle book as a gift. When you purchase an electronic product on Amazon, it becomes permanently and irrevocably tied to your Amazon account; it can thus be assigned to any Kindles associated with your account, but cannot be transferred onto an unrelated Kindle. This is silly. I can see making a rule that it can only be downloaded by the owner of one account -- no downloading something, and then deciding to give it as a gift -- but there ought to be some mechanism for gifting Kindle books. Giving books for Christmas and birthdays is a long-standing tradition in my family; the inability to carry this tradition over to the Kindle is disappointing.
- Similarly, you cannot loan a Kindle book.

Hopefully, they will fix the stupid things someday. In the meantime, I am not under any delusions that my fun new toy will be anything like a replacement for paper books, past, present, or future, but I still look forward to enjoying my new toy.

Newt

• 20:32 oops evidently @ geekaustin is not my buddy! @linearb is! and the founder of geekaustin.org - an austin institution! #
• 20:35 .@swynk the best place is the citability.pbworks.com where the dev work is. working rt now to sponsors 4 a codeathon! to create demos #
• 09:46 realizing I have been consuming too much caffeine so cutting back and having Chan tea from @jadeleaves ow.ly/E2Ml #
• 09:51 ok why does the new RT not let me add anything? boo #fail they are making RT useless #
• 09:55 So what topic should I suggest for @TEDXAustin? I'm thinking about of balanci
  ng large complex systems architectures #
• 09:58 I'm thinking of tech-> transparency-> need4balance-> mutualownership-> reputation-> openbank ind control over granular data @TEDXAustin #
• 11:04 FURIOUS at new recommendations on mammograms and HPV screening for under 21 #sexism #
• 11:22 whoops that is @TEDxATX so happy that @thesimplifiers is helping organize one here in my home town! #
• 11:23 oh mi god - i laughed so hard it hurt ow.ly/E4xY client vendor relationships! I have so been here! esp the fancy restaurant one! #
• 11:24 @nitin actually I sometimes make my own matcha :-) but still has some caffeine and I seem to be addicted to that lesser amt :-( #
• 11:26 percent confidence part would definitely be part of that talk! @pwheat systemic indicators... hm ponder... #

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Firstly: This.

Last year I had the opportunity to be spoken at by a guy named Thomas, who'd spent several years recovering from severe frontal and generalized white matter injuries, sustained in a car accident. It was disturbingly illuminating because his cognitive defects were my defects magnified to the point of caricature -- distractability, poor working memory, disordered speech, etc. It forced me to acknowledge my inner Thomas.

There is *much* to be said for recognizing the realms over which you're selectively retarded and setting up powerful roadblocks across the primrose paths of dalliance that lead to nasty places. Any scheme that requires you to be clever is too fragile to survive extended contact with reality.

But . . .

A fairly rational (perhaps too much so) voice in me objects thusly: all behavior patterns have their roots in cognitive processes. The Code is a kludge for when you don't know how to fix the process, so you short-circuit it instead. Ideally you want it as a stopgap until you disrupt the process and replace it with another one. Ultimately that may never come, but I can't shake the optimism that there's a better solution.

In the mean time, and in lieu of an alternative, the Code is the only game in town.

This weekend, Etsy is having their Holiday Show at the Intiman Theater at the Seattle Center. You should go! Not just the metaphorical "you" that means "someone else," but you- right there- chilling out with your laptop / iPhone, killing time surfing the internet.

I should specify that this is in fact in the city of Seattle, so if you are reading this from London, Wichita, New York, or other places farther away than Portland or Vancouver, I can reasonably exempt you.



But here are some reasons you should go:
1. Etsy is an awesome community that allows people to easily sell their handmade crafts online, so that people who enjoy this hobby can break even or better.
2. The show is a benefit for Treehouse, a group that provides opportunities for foster kids who are between households, a totally awesome cause for kids that can really use the help.
3. The Seattle Center is full of stuff that would be cool to do this weekend- like visit the Science Fiction Museum, see an IMAX movie, visit the EMP (okay, I guess I can scratch the EMP, but if you haven't seen the "louie louie" exhibit you are missing out), see an afternoon laser show (1:45 PM Laser Queen, 2:45 PM Laser Micheal Jackson, 3:45 PM Laser Beatles)
, and the random buskers who are entertaining- the Jimi Hendrix cover guy is worth a buck.
4. My wife and her crafty partner are easily located- just inside the doors at the Intiman, where they will have all kinds of cool stuff. Great kids things (bibs, lovies, Tee shirts), as well as cheap general-inoffensive-but-cool gifts (felted soaps with cool designs, holiday ornaments, greeting cards, wall art)
5. The rest of the show should be full of ultra-cool stuff that you could give to that aunt you haven't seen in five years, and who buys you a candle every year. I'm really thinking felted soap here, but I'm sure that the other vendors will have equally cool ideas.
6. If you are an early bird (and are one of the first 50 people there when the doors open, at 10AM), you'll get a free gift bag full of cool stuff! Free, that means no money at all!

So do it! Commit yourself to this activity, and have a great time doing it!

Las Vegas Men Sell New [Video] Poker Idea: "It's called Second Chance Royal Poker. It's like any other video poker game, except if you miss the royal flush by one card, you get a free second chance to draw that last card again."

I had this idea a long time ago -- I'm sure a lot of VP players did -- I can't believe IGT or someone didn't already have a patent on it.

Thanks to robomarkov for this link to an article about an odd futuristic product.

Or, at least one...

Back in '06, I joined a service that was, at the time, called GreenDimes. It's now called "Precycle," and is one service of a web-portal company called Tonic. It's basically a service that triest to reduce junkmail coming to your home. (I sort of wish they would get back to just focusing on, and expanding, their original service, since I frankly don't care about the rest of what they're doing. But I guess they were having trouble making money on that; the direct marketers have been lobbying state legislatures to try to make it difficult for companies like Tonic to act on behalf of consumers -- they want laws that say a third party can't opt out for you, you have to do it yourself. Anyways, it seems like they've stopped investing effort in adding more catalog-mailers to their database of "companies whose catalogs we know how to stop".)

In any case, when they originally started, they offered, as one of the options, a long-term membership, and all memberships were based on periods of time. They've recently changed the policy to basing membership on location -- you buy once for your house, but you have to re-register when you move.

I wrote in to complain about the fact that this basically meant they wouldn't be honoring my long-term membership. Within minutes, they emailed back, and after a few quick exchanges, we agreed that they'd refund most of my original membership fee. They actually offered to refund the whole thing, but I would've felt guilty about that, so I said they could keep the equivalent of what it would've cost under the new policy to register at the places I've lived while using their service.

Someone on chat posted this link to a bunch of Hyperrealist artists & their work.

Then someone started bitching about the fact "the people they depict are gross". I suspect they were being ironic and playing me for a reaction but they got it. The entire point of the movement is to express reality and in real life people are gross. They are ugly, blotchy, fat, wrinkled, unkempt and generally a mess.

It's a part of what bugs me about some of the crime shows like Castle or Bones, the people in it are too unutterably beautiful for reality. That level of beauty warp and twists how people move through life. If you look like that & show up at a crime scene and you aren't going to get shit done from everyone staring at you and being dumbstruck. It breaks my suspension disbelief more than having a straight up vampire being the detective.

And lets not even go into the sick things that portraying that sort of beauty as normal does to people's psyche. Hyperrealism does just the opposite, it takes the normal and blows it up and dips into the uncanny valley just enough that you can't ignore it and are forced to perceive it.

Within the past few hours, it appears that LHC has been coming back online...
======================

Friday 20th November

22:01 Circulating beam 1... (slight change of plans)

20:38 two turns!

20:24 Beam all the way round to Atlas.

19:55 We'eve got beam 1 around through sectors 23,34,34, and 45 to the collimators to the left of CMS. Took the beam through CMS and then managed a minor quench while steering the beam through sector 56. We're using a single low intensity bunch so the quench is what we call a quenchino and recovery is quick. We hope to back in business in 20 minutes. Image of horizontal trajectory and predicted correction.

========================
From:

http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/news/LHC-latest-news.htm

(as I post this, it is 22:15 in Geneva (10:15pm), so the last update of "circulating beam 1" was about 15 mintues ago. Presumably, many more updates are coming, so follow the page if you're interested in what happens this time.)

I had heard a few months ago that they were planning to circulate the beams again on my birthday, November 19th. More recently, they said they expected it by this weekend. So today is 1 day late from the previous schedule, but earlier than this weekend (although maybe it will still take through the weekend to get beam 2 going?) For those not following the progress of LHC, they started it up in September 2008, then a few weeks later had a major disaster that required shutting it down for more than a year to fix. Now it is coming back online, and ready to go! But it will still take a while before they are doing actual experiments. They will need to slowly increase the energy, doing double and triple checks that everything is working, before it actually gets to the point where they're in new never-seen-before territory.