Hey! I just found myself out of nowhere¹ being able to sing the harmony for "What I've Been Looking For".

¹ And by "out of nowhere", I mean listening to the High School Musical soundtrack a bazillion times over the past few weeks. But what I'm getting at is that I wasn't trying to deconstruct it – and deconstructing it is always the only way I've been able to vocalize harmonizes or play complicated rhythms. Do I now "get it" enough to be able to improvise elsewhere? Um, maybe. Let's find out.

An amazing view of Kilauea's new fountains of lava is available here.

---

Congratulations to Congress! You have done the impossible--your 9% approval rating is not only the lowest ever, it is far below that of President Bush!

---

One day after the Brewers acquired C.C. Sabathia the Cubs acquired Rich Harden from the Oakland Athletics. Harden will likely pitch on Friday against a team he has already beaten this year...the Giants.

was awesome. I suck at music reviews, but I'll give it a shot. The scene was just awesome. Rothbury is up in the woods of western Michigan with a few fields that were the perfect size to set up three big stages. The weather was spectacular. Apparently, it had been raining cats and dogs on Wednesday, but by Thursday a high pressure system had moved in and we had four days of 75 degrees and sunny. The best call we made was going high end and getting a cabin. It was expensive and over priced, but in the end we all agreed that it was worth it.

Update: added some links to some youtube clips
( Rothbury )

There's no real difference between people who deny evolution in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence and those who deny global warming.

The A/C at work is not working. I don't know how people are dealing with it. I finally relocated to the server room. It's 68 degrees in here. And really, it's like my own private office.

I have a DNS server running at home, and I'd like to pay someone to run it somewhere else.

Anyone know a hosting service that will do this for me?

I know how to edit a zone file, etc., and my ideal would be some server, somewhere, replicated and multi-site, where I could occasionally log in edit my zone files.

The Washington Times, via slashdot:



This idea is so monumentally stupid that I bet he gets promoted instead of fired.

(The promotional video was pretty choppy and only played through the first 2 minutes for me -- they're probably getting blown away by the /. effect -- but it features voiceover by Serious Deep-Voiced Announcer.)

- Monkey Island




No one could explain it
What went on that night
How every living thing
Just dropped out of sight
We watched them take the bodies
And row them back to shore
Nothing like that ever
Happened here before.

On the east side of the island
Not too far from the shore
There stood the old house
Of fifty years or more
All the dorrs and windows
Were locked inside and out
The fate of those trapped in there
Would never be found out.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island
No one cares and no one knows
The moon hangs out on Monkey Island
The night has dealt the final blow.

The fish jumped from the water
And started walking home
The birds all started screaming
And dove into the foam
The night came out of nowhere
And then a quiet rain
Footsteps in the darkness
Down a half forgotten road.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island
No one cares and no one knows
The moon hangs out on Monkey Island
The night has dealt the final blow.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island
The night has dealt the final blow.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island
No one cares and no one knows
The moon hangs out on Monkey Island
The night has dealt the final blow.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island
No one cares and no one knows
The moon hangs out on Monkey Island
The night has dealt the final blow.

Friends,
Today I am happy to say that, thanks to John Czukkermann
jlczuk who scanned it in, we have at alexandermen
the first lecture of the seven lectures on the creed by Fr Alexander
Men:
http://alexandermen.livejournal.com/3984.html
Lectures 5-7 already exist on that site and we will have 2-4
in the next days completing the availability in English on-line
of this important book.
For those needing introduction, an introduction to Fr Men,
who,what,when,why important etc is at:
http://alexandermen.livejournal.com/743.html#cutid2

Now the first lecture we linked is nine pages printed out
(as you may wish to). Not a lot of reading but indeed quite
a lot by livejournal standards...

Let me give a few excerpts from it for those in doubt as to
whether they have time or interest, and before that a word of
introduction.

A collecion of Alexander Men's writing in English called
Christianity For the Twenty-First Century was published in
the 1990s edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Ann Shukman.

What does such a title suggest to the mind?

If it is the mind of a contemporary American with some exposure
to what is discussed in liberal Protestant churches, I suppose
it would be expected to open a book proposing a series of
social, economic, political reforms along the lines proposed by
forward looking ideologues in these fields perhaps combined with
a passing over in silence of anything metaphysical(unless it be
in Deepak Chopra) or certainly of any standing before God
personally as before someone whose Reality is prior to oneself
and to ones thought and agenda.

Expecting this as a Liberal ,in a positive way(although knowing
it of course all already) or as a radical Conservative as one
more example of our society disintegrating and as
one more reason to send a donation to Ron Paul or the NRA
or something etc

In either case this,valuable or terrible though such books
of which there are many may be, is not what is provided by Fr Men.
I have put this directly and sharply because I think it seems
pandemic for people here to think in these ways which may be of
very limited relevance to the future which is beyond our thought.
and in any case is not in Fr Alexander so expectation might be
disappointed. Yet what Fr Men does provide seems to me, and may
to you, very much what is a way for thought towards and for
the time that is coming. Let me give some excerpts which
will not take you long to read. ( Read more... )
Now I will make a representation of the excerpts in these few words
but I hope you will have read them in full and then the Lecture itself.
The Creed is:
"a sequence of images..."

"faith is not blind, but clairvoyant."

"for here is the Way that has no end.
The Way to Infinity. It is an open model.
A model of flying and journeying to the Light."

This seems to me indeed a way of thought,and as you see drawing on
the antinomies of Florensky and Complementarity of Bohr etc, which
seems to have a perpetual freshness...and so it is both for the
future and also is the orientation which stands behind and before
the existence of the Creeds and is therefore also that in which
they and all the definitions may be read rightly and received not
as walls on the path of thought and of will and act, but of doors...
anyway today these
as always welcoming all you have on anything at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
Photograph by Rene Matzakin

I had an interesting day today.

I scheduled a private BJJ class with Sim Go, an instructor at Marc Laimon's gym here in Las Vegas. Both Gavin and Matt had expressed interest in going to jiujitsu. But in addition, Gavin's girlfriend Kristen and Matt's fiancée Emily also wanted to go. Also, Gavin's friend David also asked if he could tag along. The more the merrier, and so today I brought five brand new people to jiujitsu. It was great fun. Half the place stopped what they were doing when Kristen and Emily started going at it in the cage (and they really went at it). So everyone in the group now seems to really want to get into jiujitsu. It's great; I could totally end up being the godfather of poker in jiujitsu.

I have long thought about the idea of a Mixed Grappling/Limit Hold'em World Championship. It could be something like a submission grappling match and to be eligible, you would have to play like a minimum of 20,000 hands of black-chip limit hold'em. I always assumed it would come down to Matt and I, since Matt was a former Division I wrestler at heavyweight. But Dan pointed out that "arbiannight" on Stars -- whom I've played many hands against -- once fought Urijah Faber to a decision. So I'm either drawing dead on that or we are going to have to make it a purple-chip qualifier.

***

I just got back from the PokerStars party in Rain at the Palms. I rather randomly ran into a girl I went out with once, who subsequently didn't return my phone calls. The best part was that Gavin had left to go usher someone else in, Kristen had turned away from me momentarily to meet with her friend Tiffany who had just arrived, and I was texting Matt to see where he was. So here I was, standing alone and looking into my phone when this girl I went out with and doesn't return my phone calls comes up to me and says hi. Then Kristen taps me on the shoulder to take a picture of her and Tiffany. I felt this (Terrence holds his forefinger and thumb a quarter-inch apart) big.

The Stars party was an extremely huge, extremely impressive party. I really have a hard time comprehending how big PokerStars is now. I remember being one of seven or eight people who made decisions about PokerStars. I remember when we sent like 30 players to the WSOP main event and thought that was awesome. Now the hippest casino in Las Vegas has a giant PokerStars logo on the side of its biggest tower, and its celebrated nightclub is booked for a private party for PokerStars qualifiers and VIPs.

When I got there, there was a huge line to get in. I had to phone Gavin to come let me in. I don't get the "don't you know who I am" complex very often. Actually, I never get it. But I could not believe that I -- of all people -- was standing in line outside a PokerStars party waiting to be let in by my friend (who is a much more important PokerStars person than I am) on the inside.

And it's weird, because I have never regretted for even a split-second leaving Stars to do my own thing. It's given me so much freedom and so much money. But to be a large part of a very small thing, then watch that thing grow and grow and finally outgrow yourself is fulfilling but at the same time, sad. I still know a lot of people at Stars, but the percentage of the total gets fewer and fewer.

Poker is very solitary. Pretty much the only time it isn't solitary and people are pulling for you is in a live poker tournament. When you play a live cash game, everyone in your game -- everyone with whom you're interacting -- is your enemy. In live poker tournaments, when you go deep most of your friends have busted. You might be the last of your friends. They might have a piece of you, but even if they don't they're still cheering you on and hoping you do well. They check in online to see how your stack is doing. They come to your final table and make noise when you steal the blinds. The people who can't be there send you positive e-mails and IMs. It's the only time in a completely individual game where you get the glory of a team sport.

That's why the WSOP is so much fun -- six weeks of this camaraderie for which us poker players are starved -- and why I'm sad that for me, it is over. I'm not even ready to leave Las Vegas yet, because so many people haven't left yet. At this moment I still know way more people in Las Vegas than I do in Vancouver. But it won't be me they're cheering for. Not this year.

A couple weeks ago:

Animal Tales -- this is hilarious.

And an interesting in-depth look at Sheldon Adelson (and in particular his politics), creator/owner of the Venetian and the Palazzo.

I bit into a plum that was so ripe and juicy that it shot up into my nose. I was uncertain whether it was actually a piece of pulp (or just the juice) which had found its way into my nostril, but the discomfort eventually led to me blowing my nose. I'm still not sure whether that was pulp or snot. But my nose feels better now.

How many people adjust their car mirrors like this?

I used to adjust my side mirrors so that I can barely see the edge of my car in both mirrors. I knew there was a blind spot, and so I always looked over my shoulder before changing lanes. However, I've always felt so unconfident about my right mirror that I pretty much didn't use it at all.

After a discussion with my uncle last weekend, I found the above article, and I started trying out their advice this morning. It's very weird at first, but I think there's merit in their advice. I didn't follow their advice to the letter. I didn't rotate the right mirror *quite* as far as they recommended to the outside, but I did for the left mirror. And it sure seems very odd. But if you adjust your side mirrors properly, you'll have continuous vision of cars in either lane beside you.

Let's take the example of a car passing you on your left (which you would need to be aware of if you were considering moving into the left late). As it is well behind you, you can see it in your rear-view mirror. As it begins to pass the back edge of your car, it will move from your rear-view mirror to your side mirror. And just as it moves off your side mirror, it will be in your peripheral vision. So using your two mirrors and your peripheral vision, the car *never* leaves your vision. There is no blind spot.

Now, I would still check over my shoulder just in case. Also, a car might move from two lanes over into the lane that you are moving into at the same time.

I verified that this is true on both sides. Still, I will continue to check over my shoulders. But it seems like the advice makes sense. If anyone has a reason why it *isn't* a good idea to adjust your mirrors this way, please let me know.

According to the official WSOP listings, I'm not among the main event Day 1 survivors, and according to PokerNews, I'm busted. However, as the saying goes, reports of my death have been highly exaggerated. I made it out of Day 1D with 48900 chips, over double my starting stack.

They both list an "Alan Johnson" as having 48900 chips and my Day 2B starting seat (Amazon Red 24, Seat 7), so it looks like someone committed an especially egregious transcription error.

I received this email:

Dear Mr. Fox:

Thank you for your email regarding the traffic signal detection at Von Karman and McGaw, and at Jamboree and Walnut. We have investigated the cause of these unnecessary stops that you described and found that the detection system was not functioning correctly. We have made the repair to Von Karman and McGaw last week. We plan to repair the detections at Jamboree and Walnut by the end of this week.

Please feel free to contact me in the future if you have any additional concerns or questions at [redacted].

[Name Redacted]
Senior Transportation Engineer
City of Irvine

Perhaps Tampa has a similar system where you can email the city and have a signal (or two) corrected?

---

Harry Reid last week:



Where does Nevada get its energy? Hydroelectric is a source, but the largest source is coal, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal notes:

Like an “American Idol” reject who has no idea he can’t sing, Sen. Reid serves up speechification that crashes and burns in spectacular fashion. Doesn’t the Democratic Party have its own Simon Cowell, someone with enough common sense to cut off the Slipup from Searchlight before he finds all new ways to embarrass his home state?

Funny thing about coal and oil. Before they began transforming Americans’ everyday lives by providing electricity and transport that didn’t require a horse, average citizens trudged though life with mouths half-full of teeth, fortunate to live past age 40. Far from making us sick, they’ve powered advances that have extended the country’s collective life expectancy to about 80, helped eliminate hard-core poverty and made us the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet.

The Man v. Machine match at the gaming expo yesterday was really a ton of fun.  My partner, Ijay Palansky (doughnutz on stars), and I ended up losing a combined 45 bb to the machine in our duplicate match.  I lost 30 of them.  All told, over 1k hands that leaves me a 70 bet winner vs the machine (which nets me a nice 10k in side action that Bryce was, IMO, very generous to offer).  Going into it, I expected the machine to make very thin calldowns that are likely mathematically correct (and approximately zero EV) but that few (or no) human players would ever make.  This did turn out to be the case.  I wasn't surprised with much of the play, but overall I think the machine played remarkably well.

The Discovery channel was there as well as a Canadian radio station.  I enjoyed interacting with the media, although some of their questions were a bit difficult to answer:

What did you learn today? (I've played hundreds of thousands of hands, it's hard to learn too much over a 500 hand sample)

What will you do differently to beat the machine next time? (catch better cards)

Do you have anything else to add? (At this point, I looked away from the interviewer and directly into the camera and angrily spout, "The machine got LUCKY!" . . . I hope that makes the documentary).

I really enjoyed it and appreciate stox poker giving me the opportunity to play.  Here are a few links:

Pre-match interview:  http://twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue43/paradis_0708.php

Live blog:  http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Live

Some photos:  http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine/Gallery

For quite some time now, I've complained about my luck in raffles. The last time I remember winning something was grad night in high school...and that was me winning a gag gift.

When I go to bonspiels, I always participate in the raffles because they are primarily a fund raiser for the club, not a positive expectation opportunity for me. As expected, I never win.

But last weekend, that changed. I was at the Hollywood Curling Club funspiel. They had a lot of movie-themed items. I bought $20 worth of tickets -- 24 tickets. There were maybe 30 raffle prizes, and I won three of them! I guess it was almost kind of obnoxious. But what can you do? :-)

The next day, while walking on the Santa Monica pier, a pigeon pooped on me. My teammate told me I should go play the lottery. I say the jackpot isn't large enough. But how long does the poop karma last?

Drew well and won my first two games this morning, then paulsid drew the bag against me (up by like 150+ 6-7 turns in I think, don't have the scoresheet in front of me). At least I finished close to .500, 13-14 -1xx.

Meanwhile there's a new work crisis going on -- for totally baffling and inexplicable reasons some logging processes are running *really* slowly despite nothing much going on in the db, no obvious limits being hit, etc. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

UPDATE: Work problem turns out to have been some sort of networking issue on the machine in question. Logging processes have been moved elsewhere, all is well.

What can't Emacs do?
(via reddit)

Code for your .emacs:
(defun donuts ()
  (interactive)
  (message "Mmmmm, donuts."))

Wow.

Just. Fucking. Wow.