Silver Case

I’m not much of a gaming fan, but I have to say this description of Pac Man Ghost logic is pretty interesting. The simplicity is surprising, moreover, considering some of the rules seem retarded or at least counter-intuitive.  Yet they still make for great behavior.

Don’t have your old Atari console anymore?  It’s the age of the internet. Fully functioning Pacman available online.

I could use Mike Cozart’s railroad models if I ever want to a make a harsh James Ellroy-themed railroad layout.  ”Hey look, there’s Pete Bondurant shaking down a pimp at the Pele Room!”

“Famed publicist” Ronnie Chasen was murdered recently. the Daily Mail lead notes

The coroner said the nature of the famed publicist’s injuries were consistent with being targeted by a professional gunman.

Whoa, that sounds pretty heavy-duty. Professional Assassins? Why do they figure that?

Former LA detective Gill Carillo told ABC News: ‘Normally they turn the gun sideways and this is something that was done with some skill.

So shooting a gun normally, not like something out of a LA Street Gang movie, and being able to hit something incredibly tiny, like a human torso, from an incredible 15 feet away, sets the standard for a professional hitman???

Sounds like the coroner is prone to hyperbole. Wonder how many Satanic Ritual Abuse cases he’s uncovered as well.

Luke’s school hosted author of Born to Run, Christopher McDougall, for a talk this late afternoon. He’s a great public speaker and the hour flew by.

Probably the biggest surprise of the night came from an audience member question. A very average-looking forty-something white guy, with a bit of a paunch, mentioned that last year he had done a 150 mile race across the Atacama Desert in Chile, and with about sixty miles left, his shoe disintegrated, so he had to run the rest of the race barefooted. He said that everything McDougall was saying about barefoot running was exactly his experience as well.   

There were about 100 people in the audience. If you lined us all up and said, “which one of these people has run a 150 mile race through the Atacama Desert last year?” Maybe he’d be the 50th person you’d guess at. Quite impressive.

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hahahahah best line of that last link I included:

The Medics were very pleasant, organized and friendly. However, I wonder if I would have recovered better and more effectively for the remainder of the race if they had given me an IV drip that night, instead of a can of Coke, especially as I have only one kidney.

I bought (this) new MacBookPro a few weeks ago. That freed me up to get my older MacBookPro serviced (under warranty).

The old MBP I’ve owned since the end of 2007. It’s been reliable. However many months ago a DVD refused to eject from the SuperDrive despite my best efforts. I also noticed that the whole case was working itself loose. Like the screws were unscrewing themselves from the case.

I picked my computer up from service today. I was surprised that they had cleaned up the computer after replacing the ‘SuperDrive’. But the technician explained.. they didn’t replace the superdrive, they replaced the entire top-piece of the laptop (where the keyboard/mousepad/hands rest). It had warped, which was blocking the drive from ejecting.

I said, “how the hell did it warp?” He claimed it was from the weight of my hands(?). My guess is relentless heat cycling for years. Also illustrates why Apple was so keen to switch to the Aluminum unibody construction, so crap like this doesn’t happen.

via boing boing

Rats Luke has a flu on a Public Holiday. Now his playdate and an afternoon birthday party are cancelled for him.

Instead he’s trying out his new computer downstairs (an old macbook).

Tidied up the workshop today
Originally uploaded by karavshin.

Ever since OOCL Kaohsiung discharged two tons of tooling in my shop, it’s been a total mess, and getting increasingly filthy. So Emily and Matilda came in today to clean the place up while I worked on the seatstays, the last major component of Ling’s Bike.

…especially when I pointed out that the little girl spotted trouble and had sense to flee before everyone else.

He watched it over-and-over and insisted everyone else watch it, too.

This is my favorite channel on Youtube.

….my vt100 terminal has finally arrived.

11″ of Portability.

Luke was running trying ‘dramatic’ things

Recently tried out an obscure taco stand in an obscure part of singapore. Verdict: good but inconvenient.

Before

After

Matilda whips up something from her Karen tribe background. Her chillis have such depth of flavor (and heat) that they’re exquisite.

rice, potato, peas, dried fish, and chilli. mmmmmmmm

Back in 2004, I first heard about ‘Scotch Eggs’.

Only this week, during dinner at a London club, did I finally have one. Yep, pretty good.

Exactly what it is supposed to be.

At 39amps full-pedal, the heat is not a problem.

Practiced welding mitered thinwall cromoly today. Not ready to put a frame together yet, but the results were further along than I feared they might be. Was a big aid to change my grip on the TIG torch.

An erratic weld, but is improving with practice.

Been absolutely dying from the haze this week. To the extent that I was happy to be leaving for London tomorrow morning. Sore throat, coughing lungs, and a dreary horizon wear on me. It was bad twice before, once back in 2006 when She-She visited, and before that, the mother of all hazes back in 1996 or 1997.

Anyway heavy sumatran rains struck all afternoon. They’ll have rinsed the local air and hopefully put out the brush fires nearby in Riau and whatever other shit-holes are doing the slash-burning.

The panel sizes seem ok. The material has got a bit of stretch in it though, so I suffered some stitch puckering, and it stretched out the center panel. But this is getting somewhere.