torgo_x

So, yeah, somebody built a Babbage Difference Engine.

But The Analytical Engine? Not yet, except as little bits and pieces.

Reason? "The Analytical Engine was to be powered by a steam engine and would have been over 30 metres long and 10 metres wide." [says the Big W]

So as to the avoid the question of 'where to put this machine the size of a bus and probably ten times the weight?', I wonder if anyone would try constructing the whole of the Analytical Engine, but doing it in miniature.  You know, using weensy weensy bits like pre-digital watches used (especially the pre-digital watches that had all kinds of fancy extra features).

Or, ya know...

torgo_x

Short version:

I can't go to the Perl Conference this year.

And it's too bad, because I think the last one I went to was in... jeez, 2005!  I miss it all!  Maybe I can do 2009.

* * *

Long version:

On principle, this would be a great year for me to get back into conference-going, because I adore all the people I meet and re-meet at the Perl Conferences, real friends new and old (including eye candy, yes, eye candy).  And the talks on the roster look quite interesting and very very informative— I want to hear about how other people have been tool-crafting in JavaScript, because I made my tools just on my own and for myself, and so they are quite quirky; I'd be interested in the result of others having thrown a thousand times more man-hours at the same problems.

And that's say to nothing of forcing myself to look at Perl 5.10 features.  I'm still coding like it's 5.06 at latest.

Plus I love Portland, and getting there from Ketchikan isn't hard.  And to actually walk into Powell's again, mmmm!

But, in practice, this past year's neuro-medical brainsplosion of mine means that, as the drugs are being tuned and permutated, I should really stay in the same place and on the same sleep schedule, both of which mean that seeing talks in Portland can't happen.  I mean, hell, my doctor is right now writing me a note to get me out of jury duty, and not just 'cause I don't feel like having to get out of jury duty.

But, like I say, maybe 2009.

torgo_x

Apparently coming soon: edible immunocontraceptives for [stray] cats.  Vastly easier than trapping and spaying, or even just trapping and sedating enough so that you can get a needle in them for the existing immunocontraceptives.

* * *

It always makes me happy/sad that veterinary medicine moves about, what, five times faster than human medicine?

torgo_x

As I'm scribbling in the margins of graph paper, I'll bracket an area and write ½″ and then an equals sign and then what it is in twips, as that's what RTF works in.  And I write 720 and then a "tw" after it, but my "tw" looks like just a feeble scribble.

I HAVE DECIDED that the symbol for twips is to be the long under-used ϖ symbol!  That's \varpi = ϖ = U+03d6.

So now I can write:

½″ = 720 ϖ

Now and forever!

[DVD COMMENTARY EXTRA! "ϖ" is the only typo in the whole huge ASCII chart in Perl & LWP's print edition.  It was erroneously printed as "Π".  Of course, it has been corrected.]

torgo_x

Fourteen years I've been using inkjet/bubblejet printers, and it just now occurs to me to take a tablet of top-perforated graph paper, pull the pages all out, and load them into the printer.

I'm slow on the uptake sometimes.

(As to the why of the graph paper: some layout stuff.)

flipzagging

Over in perligata a discussion of the literary merits of science fiction is breaking out. Someone mentioned that Eric S. Raymond had written a big polemic on science fiction as an aspect of the manifest destiny of American libertarianism, so I just had to go find it. And it is pure comedy gold:

Symbolically, Heinlein was the first among equals in a study commission of SF authors formed by Ronald Reagan to consider the feasibility of an anti-ballistic missile defense. Commission member Gregory Benford later described President Reagan as "a science fiction fan", and the vision that emerged as the Strategic Defense Initiative was startlingly SFnal. Reagan's threat to build SDI at the Reykjavik summit with Gorbachev in 1986 triggered the collapse of Soviet strategic ambitions as Mikhail Gorbachev realized that the Soviet Union could not match the U.S.'s raise in the geopolitical poker game. The Berlin Wall fell three years later and the Soviet Union collapsed three years after that; science fiction saved the world. Somewhere, Campbell and Heinlein were probably smiling.

-- A Political History of SF, Eric S. Raymond, retrieved 2008-06-29.

torgo_x

People.

People.

Remember Special People's Video Store? ( ... )

brad

• 23:53 Love the long days! I seek drinking options now. #
• 19:26 7:25pm: new meme: all tweets to contain self-written timestamps so your friends know when twitter sucking. #

torgo_x

Pretty.

Also, Mmmmm, mmmmm.

And then the mothership of it all.

mendel

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately — been busy with work, finishing up the last bits of apartment decorating before Carrie and family come visit, and exploring the city now that it’s Damn Hot out.

On Father’s Day we drove back to Belleville to go out to dinner with my father, the first long drive we’ve done in the caar since my trips back and forth to Ottawa while Candice was still living there and me here. About halfway home: grindy noise! It came and went but performance, temperature and so on didn’t seem affected, and I noticed a wobbly pulley, so I figured it’d get us back to Toronto fine (and it did) and then I could take it in.

A couple days later, I had a new A/C compressor, and the wobbly pulley (and the serpentine belt) replaced too. And parts are not cheap for this old Swede.

Combine that with how often we drive — I filled up the tank for that trip, and before that the previous fill-up was March 25 — and the crazy cost of car insurance living in downtown TO, and the conclusion jumps out at you: We really don’t need a car here.

I take the TTC or my bike to work every day. Candice walks a few blocks to work. Grocery stores are even closer. Whenever we head downtown or to the Annex or Queen West we just take the TTC or walk. Hell, we don’t even have parking — the car is on the street all the time. And for the odd errand that does require a car, we can just use Zipcar or Autoshare in town and a regular car rental for road trips, and come in way, way under what we’re paying to have a car sit on the street, even though the car’s fully paid for.

I was car-free in Montreal from 1994 to 2001, but then as soon as I moved to Ottawa I bought the Saab, partly because Ottawa (and the neighbourhood I was living in) was pretty car-heavy, and partly because I had the disposable income and an excuse. But for someone who’s read car mags since childhood, I didn’t find car ownership all that fun. Too much maintaining and not enough spirited driving, maybe? Or maybe too sensible a car, or maybe too sensible a place to drive.

(The same thing happened with the motorcycle, I think. I’m not sure why, specifically.)

So the car’s going for sale later this year. Not sure when yet. Not looking forward to the process one bit, either! But I’ll be back to car-free soon, and I’m pretty happy with that, and especially happy living somewhere where I can, and not be too inconvenienced or treated like a freak for relying on transit.