Sam's L33t Journal

Crazy rain today.

There was a $50 coupon for Yelp Elite members for Washio, a new dry cleaning / laundry delivery service. The price wasn't too bad for door-to-door service, and the service was really good and very convenient. The offer came at just the right time because I had several loads of laundry and some dry cleaning queued up (winter weather has arrived for real, and it's going to get really cold in no time, so this is the last chance to bring things out of storage). They picked up Saturday morning and delivered today. I wouldn't want to replace my every-day laundry with that (it's not enough trouble to be worth the wait and expense), but it seems good for spring-cleaning sorts of laundry chores and it's a good option for dry cleaning (especially for those heavier items), since that can be annoying to lug around without a car.

I'm making some more beer bread for Julie's office party. I made some last weekend, too.

Friday: Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross book talk at Brookline Booksmith (there doesn't seem to be video of that, but here's an earlier version of the talk/reading). They were talking about their as-weird-as-possible novel collaboration, The Rapture of the Nerds, and how the ideas behind the modern version of "the singularity" date back (at least) to a late-19th-century rocket scientist and theologian.

Saturday: Belgian Beer Fest, featuring quite a variety of local brewers and imports. The highlight for me was Night Shift Brewing, a local gem I was previously unaware of. Also went to the Greek Music and Food Festival, which featured traditional dance in elaborate costume.

Sunday: Union Square hosted a music festival entitled Help! Our Bands are On Fire to assist members of The Columbia House, a local artists' household destroyed by a house-fire.

Unfortunately, I must also mention another piece of sad news: ITAer and famed Lisp hacker Dan Weinreb died last Friday.

Last weekend, I went to visit Julie's family, and it was a rare white Christmas in Lubbock, Texas (enough to give the yards and rooftops a uniform coat of white, little enough to vanish without a trace the moment the sun came out on the 26th). It was good to see her folks under less-hectic circumstances, and it was a very pleasant and relaxing weekend. We watched Cats (the musical, on DVD), played catch with the most energetic German shepherd I've ever met, and had a fantastic Christmas dinner. I kept Julie company, reading while she continued to grind out the last bit of her thesis, and I played some games of cribbage with her dad and brother (wasn't nearly as rusty as I expected).

The flight there was smooth, but the flight home was marred by a 4.5 hour delay and subsequent missed connection. At least American put me up in a hotel nice enough to almost make me forgive them for the delay (the Grand Hyatt at DFW).

Then back home and back to work. Trying to wrap up end-of-year stuff and get some good work done in the quiet office.

Winter has been delayed here, but seems to be dragging itself in the door.

Can't believe 2011 is almost over.

Fitness: Workouts continue apace. Trying to watch my diet a bit more, despite all the opportunities for delicious brunch.

In related news, props to Newton Running for their innovative shoe design. I bought a pair of the Sir Isaac (Neutral Guidance Trainers), in hopes of strengthening my foot for more minimal shoes (as opposed to my previous "ludicrous amounts of arch support" design). Very interesting shoe; odd but actually quite a bit more comfortable on the ankles and knees when running, but more tiring across the sole of the foot in general. Forces a better form while running, has me adjusting my form on balance exercises and lunges in a good way (less leaning on my shoe). May have my feet a little more tired at the end of the day than previous, but overall seems good so far.

ComplexMeme: Trying to post more things at my other blog. A little bit about the movie The Interrupters, and some thoughts on the Netflix split (unpleasant for customers in the short run, and maybe the long, but certainly an interesting business case-study).

Politics: The remaining two of the Americans arrested in Iran while trying to hike in Iraq were released this week after the nation of Oman paid $1M in bail. What a bizarre story. Iran essentially kidnaps American hikers in an entirely different country after luring them over an unmarked border, overtly based on accusations of espionage but covertly (evidently) just an old fashioned kidnap-for-ransom scheme (which makes me wonder just where that "bail" is going?). One is released on "bail" pre-trial, her failure to show up for the trial is undoubtedly used to help convict the other two. The others are actually sentenced to eight years in jail, but then allowed to be "released on bail" as a "humanitarian gesture". The US, meanwhile, saves face by refusing to pay, but convinces Oman to pay somehow as a "humanitarian gesture" of their own. Don't know what the US government did to get the government of Oman to pony up the money, but that is undoubtedly coming soon to a WikiLeaks near you.

Don't Ask Don't Tell (a.k.a. the "let's fire Arabic translators for no good reason during a counter-insurgency effort in the middle east" policy) has finally been repealed for good. DADT was an embarrassing and dumb compromise that allegedly improved a worse embarrassing and dumb policy. But hey, I guess that compromise worked, in a sense. Good riddance.

Troy Anthony Davis was executed yesterday after final appeals failed. I have little to say about the case that hasn't already been said. If I was required to put money on it, I'd say the guy was innocent, but I cannot claim to have a sufficient understanding of the evidence of the case. However, I will say that while I understand why the criminal appeals standard is higher than the criminal trial standard, it would be nice if "beyond a shadow of a doubt" (at the very least) was applied to the approval of executions.

Games: Finished two video games recently.

The first, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a worthy prequel to the original. It's fun, and it captures the setting very well. It has somewhat less depth than the original, but far more polish. The stealth/cover system leads to interesting and suspenseful scenes, and there really are multiple valid solutions to most of the game's challenges. The difficulty curve is great, if you remember you're not playing a "standard" modern shooter, your character seems powerful but not invincible. Get the jump on a guard (or a group of guards, with careful planning) and they're doomed, run out into the middle of a room of foes with guns and they will swiftly turn you into cyborg swiss cheese. The choices of which mechanics to change relative to the original were smartly made (replacing a complex per-body-part health system and medkits with one total and regeneration was good overall in my view, inventory management is a bit easier, and replacing a "plug it in and wait" hacking mechanic with a rather clever mini-game). A few aspects are off: Boss battles are either way too hard or way too easy depending on weapons/tactics, the ending is a little clumsy, and the balancing/regeneration for limited-use special abilities are not quite right. Still, if you liked the original (or if you like shooter/RPGs or cyberpunk scifi) in general, you'll probably like this one.

The second, Bastion is a fun action/RPG game, with beautiful and surreal aesthetics, amazing music, fun, challenging, and suspenseful gameplay, good balance, and an interesting, well written, and well-programmed narration style. It's an excellent example of a game that tells a story in a way that's predominantly storytelling through gameplay (as opposed to "accompanied by"). If you want a great (and great as a game) example of "games as high art" that is not (and does not have the typical flaws of) "an art game", this is it. Seriously, this is not only one of the best games of this year (if not the best), but goes on my list of "best games of all time". If you like adventure/RPGs, you should play it. If you are interested in games, art, or storytelling in general, you should at least watch someone play it for a while. The soundtrack also stands on its own, this has been running through my head all week.

ITA's company dinner cruise was nice and relaxing.

The vegetarian tasting menu at Oleana is amazing.

The movie Primer is amazing if you love time travel stories and being confused. Which I do, apparently.

Ames is still awesome.

My first batch of beer (which I'm helping ODan and EHawk make) seems promising, and is now in bottles. Will be carbonated and done in two weeks or so.

We might have a new housemate for the end of the month, fingers crossed.

Bouldering after a few weeks off is a pain (specifically, in the hands), but I was able to pull myself up a v0 (and almost a v1) after much effort.

A non-crackpot published a paper allegedly proving P!=NP. It's interesting, but still probably not correct.

Don't know what's up with this story, about Google being in back-room anti-net-neutrality talks with Verizon. What the hell, Google? I hope they're up to something clever...

Ted Stevens is feared dead in a plane crash. If it's any comfort, he died doing what he loved.

Bank of America inadvertently charged me for someone else's check. I talked to online support, who told me to call check fraud (not 24/7), who (after determining the cause of the error) referred me to standard customer service, who pushed the issue to their error resolution department and told me to wait two days. It's a good thing the check didn't bounce (and that I had enough to not inadvertently overdraw on something else as a result). Still, I feel like the money should be restored to my account as soon as the error is confirmed, I shouldn't have to wait while they sort the rest of it out.

Zan (Xave's sister) is evidently a radio personality now, running a weekly show on WSRN (has a podcast feed, too). I finally got around to listening to one of the episodes she posted. It's nifty.

When I heard about the crash of US Flight 1549, I expected a tragic disaster. So I'd like to give some props to Chesley Sullenberger, III for maintaining our run of no one dying in jetliner crashes.

(In addition to being an airline pilot, he's the CEO of a safety consulting firm, so I expect he's going to have a lot of business from now on.)

Flash cards are really useful for language learning, but they're a pain to make and a pain to carry around. Xave (kihou) made a rather useful flashcard program back in the day. Unfortunately, it's Cocoa-based, so it only runs on Macs.

The Amazing Flash Card Machine shows promise, but the features are rather minimal, and the interface could be better. I should really consider coding something better when I have the time (open-source project, maybe, or part of a web start-up?). Still, that's what I'm using for now. Here are a few flash card sets I've made, so you can get an idea of what I'm learning:
Hiragana
Vocab 1
Kanji Vocab 1

If anyone could help me understand the origins / components / meaning of the following kanji, I would be grateful:
休 - きゅう　or やす (rest?)
先 - せん　or さき
週 - しゅう (week)
曜 - よう　(day?)

Update: Props to the makers of TAFCM for being prompt to respond to feedback. They've implemented at least some of the suggestions I sent them, and responded to the rest (put them on their to-do list, apparently).