Internet is becoming more and more polluted with junk-mail, people selling crap, and businesses which don't know their place on the net. They're all trying to make this wonderful place (i.e.: the net) in to hell (i.e.: real world). Internet should be viewed as a place of imagination, creativity, and most of all: fun. Internet is not some really advanced tool for searching for people to rip-off. It's about searching, and finding, things which are useful, helpful, and promote the sharing of ideas. This is what this site is striving to become.

St. Patrick's Day!

Kids caught in Medicaid pay crossfire. Not to be mean, but can't the states ``force'' the doctors to accept medicaid? Ie: if you wanna have a license to practice medicine in this state, you *have* to accept medicaid as payment (kinda like the US gov forces everyone to accept dollars as payments for all debts).

Spent a little while reading: A Whirlwind Tutorial on Creating Really Teensy ELF Executables for Linux. It's great! A bit old (1999 article?), but great! I remember doing something similar during the DOS days (admittedly, it was much simpler---just write the thing in assembly as a COM program---no headers, no data section, just pure code; like my mutiplayer Worm game that's a 189 byte executable).

Got the Nexus One desktop dock. Will use phone as my alarm clock from now on.

Also got the eye chart. Apparently I have 20/40 vision in left eye, and 20/30 vision in right eye (when measured 20' away). With newly prescribed glasses, it's 20/25 (though I can guess on half the letters in 20/20 row).

In other news, had another driving lesson :-)

- Alex; Wed Mar 17 03:36:29 EDT 2010
March 17th at wikipedia...

About two years ago, I "cleaned" my bike chain by spraying a bit of WD40 on it. I routinely biked to the beach and once in a while got the chain went and sandy... and WD40 seemed like a good idea to apply after washing off the sand. Well... that idea turned out to be pretty bad.

WD40 got on the disk breaks, and made them useless. Never ever use WD40 anywhere near disk breaks!

You press breaks, but nothing happens. Since then, I've been trying all sorts of remedies. For example, last year, I washed the breaks with soap, soaked them in detergent, then degreasing agent, soaked them in soap water, scrubbed them with toothpaste, etc., and yet in the end, breaks still didn't, and in addition, they developed a squeaking noise whenever they're applied. Much fun that is.

This year I decided to replace the whole thing, and started googling for a replacement breaking thingie---and to my shock, the breaks on my bike are ~$300! Eh, good quality components, but a bit painful if need to replace. Anyway, noticed folks selling "breaking pads" for $11 or so... Hmm... "pads" ? In all my cleaning efforts, I haven't even noticed that the seemingly solid block of metal can actually be taken apart to remove the pads!

Now instead of just ordering a new pair (would need to figure out which one to order), I decided to give current pads another cleaning. After some googling, apparently rubbing alcohol is the thing to use on WD40-ed breaking pads. So washed them with soap (they were still greasy after all that cleaning last year), and let them soak in rubbing alcohol for two days. Then a friend suggest to set'em on fire (just to be sure---maybe burn off any WD40 that soaked into the pads), and did that as well (pliers, over an open flame).

In any case, now they're clean. No longer greasy. Tested them out in the park (during rain), and they're great---like new! And that annoying squeaking is gone...

- Alex; Tue Mar 16 08:12:29 EDT 2010

D0h: Apollo Moon Rocks Contained Water All Along.

Went driving for my 2nd lesson (Toyota Camry this time). Did a buncha loops around quiet residential streets :-)

- Alex; Mon Mar 15 02:11:16 EDT 2010

Happy PI day!

Google to shut China search engine. Wow. Though good for them. I'd imagine they don't get a lot of revenue from China anyway---and this is a great PR move---making all other corps that stay and bend over look lame.

Went driving today. My first time driving (more than drifting half-a-block, that is). Interestingly enough, the instructor sat me down behind the wheel (Toyota Corolla) right away. Then I drove off into Woodhaven Blvd (w0ah, first time I'm driving, and I'm going ~30mph in moderate traffic on a 4 lane road, in the *rain*!), then turned into Queens Blvd... and drove all the way to Union Turnpike... and then onto the highway (doing ~50mph!). All within the first 20 minutes of getting into the car for my first driving lesson! Needless to say I had a bit of sensory overload---but it was *great*; no sticky situations at all. It all went perfectly smoothly. The tricky bits turned out to be the quiet streets that everyone starts driving on. The turns are tricky---I tend to either over-compensate for the turn, or not turn sharply enough. Looking for stop signs and figuring out right-of-way for every intersection (I didn't know the streets I was driving in) was a major pain in the neck. Going straight on a road with street lights is trivially easy... highways are *very* easy (merging and leaving highway was also very easy). Parallel parking also seems easy---I did it three times, and all three times went without a hitch (first try and I was in the spot---this is my first time driving!). All in all---those residential quiet streets were most tricky of all... gotta be very paranoid about folks crossing street in middle of road, and very paranoid about every intersection. Also took the required 5-hour class, and scheduled 15 additional lessons (package deal).

- Alex; Sun Mar 14 00:35:09 EST 2010

What an eventful week. Went to the DMV to get a learner's permit (wanna learn to drive), and flunked the vision test!

Standing about 6 feet away from a chart, you have to read some small print---and I read half the letters wrong. One way to progress out of the situation is to visit an optometrist within 2 days and get a note... So off I went to Pearle Vision a few blocks away. The on-staff doc sat me in a chair about 10 feet away from the chart, and asked me to read the letters... which I flunked again. She concluded ($25) I had 20/50 vision, and could not pass the exam---at which point they scheduled a more comprehensive (and more about 5x more expensive) eye exam. The more comprehensive eye exam figured I got approximately +1.25 vision in both my eyes, and I got prescription for glasses (and a note to take to the DMV).

Now, I must say that before all this I felt "fine". I read books, ride subway, use computer, run around park, ride a bike, etc., without any issues at all. And yes, I can read subway advertisements from across the row, and see where I'm going.

Yey for the note, got the learner's permit! (...and drove a friend's car for half a block... at a breathtaking speed of around 1mph).

Got the (overpriced) glasses today. And wow, they're amazing. Simply breathtaking. Everything is soo crystal clear. I wore them most of the day just in amazement. People's faces, fonts on the computer, etc., it's all so... sharp! And so close! And then I went outside...and apparently I got shorter! My feet are soo close now I can touch them with my suddenly short arms... oh, wait, I can't. It's like walking in a fish bowl, all distances are messed up. Imagine walking around and suddenly finding everyone's face like uncomfortably close to you... that's how weird it was.

I hypothesize that our brain uses the "resolution" of things to tell the distance---sort of like measuring the number of pixels a known object takes up to give you the perception of distance. Change the pixel count, and our brain thinks objects are closer! Maybe that's how folks blind in one eye can still see perspective?

In any case, througout the day, I was constantly comparing glasses-on-glasses-off visuals, and in the office, was pretty much always amazed at the clarity. But then I went outside... and tried farther distances [beyond cubicle range---like more than a few feet]. Guess what, the visuals weren't as impressive at long distances... In fact, the fishbowl distortion kinda makes things look funny/weird.

Also, in 2006, I took an FAA medical (3rd class), and passed... in that office, I literally stood ~20 feet away from the chart. Yep, that's at *least* 20/40 vision to pass, just a few years ago---when measured from ~20 feet... not 10. I don't remember having problems seeing stuff on the chart then, and prolly got 20/30 vision at that distance.

Hmm... So I went home and did some googling. Apparently I have Hyperopia, or farsightedness. Which is kinda interesting; why Pearle Vision didn't just test me from 20 feet away... I mean, glasses are amazing at close range (mostly 'cause of funny fish bowl distortion and clarity upto 10 feet or so), but it's certainly not something I can't live without... in fact, I lived just fine without'em! Maybe all I needed were reading glasses, but even then, I have no problems reading...

Ordering (yey amazon!) an actual Snellen chart just to test my hypothesis---that 10/20 vision is not the same as 20/40 vision (which is kinda obvious, but, eh!).

- Alex; Sat Mar 13 02:22:25 EST 2010

Finished reading Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. The first book. It's pretty damn good; sort of hard to put your finger on what the story is about---and then the hodgepodge of a story doesn't even end when the book does (ie: I plan on reading 2nd book).

Starting on Einstein's Bridge by John Cramer.

- Alex; Mon Mar 8 07:03:04 EST 2010

Finally found a usable Kindle hack for Unicode that actually works "as expected" (ie: you don't need to root your Kindle, and the device can display pretty much all fonts after the update---including the original latin).

- Alex; Sat Mar 6 03:49:08 EST 2010

Rewriting my simple renderer I use in all my applets---making it opengl-ish in style (as opposed to hoky matrix, clipping, and hodgepodge of crap all over the place---the inconsistent mess it is now).

- Alex; Tue Mar 2 02:14:08 EST 2010

Snow rox!

- Alex; Fri Feb 26 07:50:39 EST 2010

Played some OpenArena. It is essentially a Quake3 Arena clone, except with custom maps, models, sounds, etc. Totally fun to play!

- Alex; Thu Feb 25 23:27:29 EST 2010

Got a cold and been feeling horrible these last few days :-/

- Alex; Wed Feb 24 07:33:57 EST 2010

Economists: Recovery is firmly on track. Yep. Nothing to worry about it.

- Alex; Mon Feb 22 03:53:40 EST 2010

Have you ever had to knock a door in? I haven't seriously tried before... But... My door lock fell apart, and the piece of a lock that sticks into the frame got "stuck" there. So my solution (besides unscrewing all possible screws I see from the outside---with screwdriver borrowed from a neighbour) was to call the energency service---who called locksmith, who never showed up. My other solution (sometime later) was to knock the door in... that's about the time neighbour came out and lent me a screwdriver; I guess the noise of me crashing into door got'em concerned.

Well, knocking down door didn't work as it appears to work on TV. Maybe on TV the door frame is not made out of metal! Yep, that's about it. When the door frame is made out of metal... and the door is made out of metal... a small solid piece of metal stuck between the two makes it... pretty much impossible to knock down. I'm actually very impressed by this... folks get all sorts of fancy door-protection thingies, but the basic lock, with metal all over is all by itself pretty damn good security.

In any case, after a bit of time (and lots of noise), the door frame got bent out of shape, enough so for me to pry the now-bent lock piece out with a screw driver, and get the door open. Now still gotta call locksmith to fix (hammer in) door frame and install new lock.

Oh, and shoulder hurts... :-/

- Alex; Fri Feb 19

Signed up for TD Bank Five Boro Bike Tour. My first time biking in any such event---I guess I should buy a helmet ('cause it's part of that long small-print waiver).

- Alex; Thu Feb 18 01:14:38 EST 2010

Yey. Got the Nexus One (along with the data plan, and unlimited thingies). This thing is amazing. Has a ton of apps---and pretty much every feature I can think of iphone having, this one has it too. Even has free SSH client! Best of all (or not???): all the data is tied into google apps (so gmail, google talk, calendar, etc., are all @theparticle.com thingies). There's also wonderful integration with Google Voice (you can simply use the phone via WiFi, and make phone calls via Google Voice, etc.). I used the phone for a few hours at home, and pretty much all that time it was only connected to my WiFi (and not t-mobile). Wish the data-plan thingie was a bit cheaper, but, eh, it's so amazing it's worth it.

Finally got around to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's essentially similar to DS mario game (which rox---same style as original mario bros, but updated and cooler). This Wii one is an updated version of the DS game; looks very fun. Got wiped in the first castle though---need a bit more time to get used to Mario :-)

- Alex; Wed Feb 17 02:57:43 EST 2010

Went for a hiking trip upstate; primarily ended up walking up Peekamoose Mountain, but didn't get to summit---got maybe 3/4th of the way up. It gets colder, hungrier, and more tired as you go up... also snow gets thicker (prolly need snow shoes).

- Alex; Sun Feb 14

Decided to move into the mobile land, and ordered Nexus One (that google phone).

Finished reading Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) by Brian Cox. This book is horribly written! Or edited. Or something. Seems to jump from topic to topic, for no particular reason. It does try very hard, and has some good intuition---but that doesn't make the book readable.

If you want a good explanation of the basics between mass-energy thingie or simply to understand intricacies of Relativity, I highly recommend reading The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality instead. Though this one has a ton of String Theory bullshit; but the first half of the book is just well written intuition on steroids.

Started reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by DNA.

- Alex; Sat Feb 13 02:22:52 EST 2010

Actually ran out of space on my HD. The drives are so huge, that I didn't even *think* of looking at space usage... and poof, home folder is at 100%. Now gotta move stuff around.

In other news,...winter olympics, Vancouver 2010!

- Alex; Fri Feb 12 03:42:43 EST 2010

Yey, finally mentally back from vacation (physically, was back last monday :-)

- Alex; Mon Feb 8 06:41:54 EST 2010

Day 8 (sunday-monday):

Went back to Kona, using the north route. So technicaly, went all the way around the big island on this vacation (to volcano village via south loop, back to kona via north loop). Visited a really nice gated beach [Kikaua Beach, I think, near Kona] (you just tell'em "i'm here for the beach" and they let you in).

There's another beach near by; Kekaha Kai State Park, but you really need an SUV (or some sorta all-terrain thingie) to get there. The road is an unpaved gravel road through the lava rock field... very uneven terrain. Teh minivan just couldn't get us there... and we saw one stranded car---right before we pulled back.

(Airport!) Had a gin and tonic after the security check. Took an evening flight out of Kona to LAX. Luckily the Kona to LAX flight was about an hour early.

LAX: waiting for connecting flight that's in 10 hours (it was supposed to be in 9 hours, but first flight was a bit too swift).

Dozed off for... a while. An hour? Two? It's all a blur.

Just talked to the customer service rep, and was added to standby list for next flight, which is in about 20 minutes---so might just get to NYC soner than I thought (and had another gin and tonic---apparently much stronger than the one mixed in Kona---note to self: don't go to the "double that for another $3" thing next time; Still had a quite a bit of alkihole in theh system when airplane landed [monday evening] in JFK).

Was concious enough to pay $12.99 for that American Airlines gogo in flight internet access; it actually worked---was able to SSH into my homebox (and VPN into my wr0k desktop). Kinda neat. Except my laptop crashed about 5 minutes after I connected.

Also... I think I'm developing a cold; NY weather sux :-/

- Alex; Sun Jan 31

Day 7 (saturday):

Eary mr0ning walked 2 miles in pitch black (moon light) to a bus to Hilo, from there took a cab to Hilo airport---and from there, flown to Honolulu.

Visited Pearl Harbor sites, including Bowler, Missoury, and Pacific air museum ("do it all" ticket for $42 [again this number came up]). First a few things... the Bowler tour was great. This is technically my 2nd time inside a submarine (on this vacation and ever), and this one felt "real"; kinda like "old style" fully metal type things. Every knob looked lethal, and every edge was gonna hurt your elboe or hit you on the head if you moved a bit wrong.

The Missoury tour sucked (that ship is huge, and all the interesting areas are closed, only outside is open to tourists), and I spent an hour waiting for the "every 15 minutes" shuttle bus.

The Pacific air thing was cool, but it only had 4 or so planes, and the coolest attraction was a flight simulator... which turned out to be a late 1990s flight simulator type game, the "conrols" and enviroment was not realistic (you use a regular PC joystick, and there's no feedback, etc.). In other words, totally not worth $10 ticket price.

And then I learned that the "do everything ticket" didn't include a visit to Arizona, which kinda sucked, 'cause tickets for Arizona were sold out by then.

Since I had 4 hours left before my return light to Hilo, I decided to walk to the airport (instead of taking cab). That's like an 8 mile walk, so I thought it would be fun... it wasn't. The road follows a highway, which sux, and I ended up returning to Arizona Memorial to catch a cab. Yey, day well spent...

On flight back, recorded in-cabin altitude with my altemeter... apparently on take-off and landing, cabin pressure makes it seem like you're 150ft *below* sea level, while cruizing is ~4500ft above sea level. I would've thought cabin pressure would be "at sea level" for maximum comfort, etc., but... guess not. No wonder ears pop in airplanes!

Before returning to lodge, went to take moonlight photos of coastline, and visit a smoking volcano...twice (first time didn't have my winter coat).

On the whole trip, I'm amazed how different Hawaii temperatures can be... during the day it could be 90 degrees, and 40 during the night... drive 20 minutes, and it's very different.

- Alex; Sat Jan 30