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July 31, 2005
If on a winter's night a traveler
With If on a winter's night a traveler Italo Calvino explores writing about you, the reader, reading, and many recursive eddies emanating from that premise. I'm having a difficult time referring to it without getting sucked into the story, or at least the flow of some of the ideas he exposes in the book.
The humor in Calvino's storytelling saves If on a winter's night a traveler from being an unreadable exercise in virtuosity. Multilevel put ons keep you reading along with a grin even as he holds you too up for scrutiny. His metaphors hit at such a tangent many never sink in at all; those that do come back into your consciousness hours later, where you seem to understand what writing really is only when you superimpose all the story's writers over each other and hold them in comparison to the readers.
I'm amazed I made it to the end again, but have already begun to forget.
Posted by Mark at 09:11 PM
Can mount the MP3 player, part II
I've started ripping CDs to MP3s on my home system, which is still Red Hat 9. grip seems to work acceptably, although with a couple of gotchas that are no doubt fixed in a more recent version. I had to change a few things from the default (.ogg) encoding for things to work with the MP3 player:
Notice that the encoder is lame, that I changed the -h to -p in the command line options, and move the spot where the encoded files go.
Unfortunately, I couldn't use %t in the output file names, so they're out of order compared to the disk and need to be renamed after ripping. Not sure what's going wrong there.
Posted by Mark at 10:03 AM
July 30, 2005
Sweet Tea
I've been listening to Buddy Guy's album, Sweet Tea. Mr. Guy apparently has a club in Chicago, but I've never gone. The album cover shows some place you might not want to live if you have a choice.
He sure plays like he has the blues, and in listening you feel like you understand why Buddy Guy thought Eric Clapton was okay but some of the other white guitar players who based what they were doing on blues music were playing something that could only be called the blues from the standpoint of time signatures and chord progressions.
Posted by Mark at 06:00 PM | Comments (1)
Can mount the MP3 player
Whereas I couldn't get my camera mounted, all I had to do for the MP3 player was plug it in, choose a mount point, and mount things:
$ ls /proc/scsi/ atp870u ide-scsi scsi sg usb-storage-0 $ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/mp3player $ ls /mnt/mp3player/ Buddy Guy Johnny Cash - Unchained settings.dat Jimi Hendrix nugscast_20050514.mp3 The Jimi Hendrix Experience Johann Sebastian Bach Pink Floyd WMPInfo.xml
If that works so simply, then what the heck is going on with the HandyCam?
Posted by Mark at 05:45 PM | Comments (2)
1:50:54/163
Strange 23 km this morning around Pontcharra.
I woke up late, around 7:50 am, and went out almost right away, but forgot something to drink and so doubled back before starting. Felt tired most of the way, with my heart rate through the roof, maybe more than 5% too fast on average, althought the pace was in the slow range at 4:49/km (7:45/mi). Not sure what happened.
Weighed myself when I got back. I was at 80.7 kg (178 lb), meaning I somehow lost a big chunk of weight since last week. Maybe the quick change in volume of food plus jet lag led to my weirdly high pulse.
Posted by Mark at 11:17 AM
July 29, 2005
Vacation, part II
Some people engaged in more amusing vacation activities than others.
Posted by Mark at 09:55 PM | Comments (2)
Terminal 2F
When we came back from Indiana, we spent about 3 hours in Terminal 2F:
This one apparently is not going to collapse from the stresses of heating and air conditioning.
Posted by Mark at 09:36 PM
Giving up truth
Until now, everything you've read in this blog has been either true or as close to it as I know how to come... or at least obviously fictional. Sometime soon I'm going to introduce partly fictional writings.
So lots of what I write will still be true. But some won't.
Posted by Mark at 08:59 PM | Comments (2)
The end of bookmark sync problems?
Ludo sent me to an internal Sun service that does what del.icio.us does for you outside the Intranet. I'm arriving very late to this party.
My hope is that this can be a real solution to the pain of bookmark synchronization, and of losing all your bookmarks when upgrading or mistakenly overwriting what you have.
It's not clear that I can actually use it yet. Of course the folder metaphor of bookmarks was not any better. We'll see.
Posted by Mark at 04:47 PM
Jet lag
Jet lag invariably takes me to the psychological low point in the early nighttime of the second day. The worst I've had so far is stumbling through the Bay Area on foot in deep paranoia, a horrible place when you feel fragile. It's hard to believe so many people lived through LSD experiences in that environment when even jet lag nearly sends me hiding under the bed.
Yesterday after failing to get USB storage working, I tried to go to sleep, but could not. I started reading If on a winter's night a traveler, hoping that would help, but it was worse. Calvino was mocking me in every line.
I complained to Phil this morning about the censorship we practice from good manners, keeping our real opinions covered, partly out of the concern we'll be attacked for them, partly because we're too lazy to defend them. We accept nonsense silently, or even with a measure of complicity and consent. The condition is surely exacerbated during job interviews, guest visits, courting. Then we must live with our failure to speak our minds, like the liar who can no longer remember what tales he told.
Phil listened to my blabber and gently agreed, even offering an example of his own to corroborate my findings. Maybe he disagreed, I don't know.
By the time you're old enough to know what's going on, you're already straight jacketed in a context that's breeding it's own problems even before you add yours.
In a dream I met someone who was a mover and shaker. I'd asked, "What do you really want to preserve?" He replied, "Control." I woke out of that one shaking and gasping for breath.
Posted by Mark at 01:12 PM | Comments (2)
1:00:29/153
Phil and I went for a jog together this morning. I was aiming for at least 11 km, but I'm not sure how far we went.
My heart rate looks too fast for a jog. Maybe it's the jet lag. Had trouble going to sleep last night.
Posted by Mark at 10:40 AM
July 28, 2005
Cannot mount the HandyCam
Cannot figure this one out, although I've been working at it for 3 hours, Googling included.
My system at home, kernel 2.4.21, recognizes the HandyCam when I plug it in over USB. But it doesn't associate the
# mount -v -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/camera/ mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device
It's one of those occasions where I wish I knew how some of this actually works, because it must be really simple if you do.
Posted by Mark at 11:52 PM
Overflow, part III
Upon returning from vacation, I had about 3700 messages. Today I reduced that to 230 of which I probably only need answer a few.
My intent is to reduce time spent reading, writing, and responding to email from about 1/3 of my job to less than 1/5. I'd like to reduce it to 1/10, but am not sure that's really feasible at a company whose culture is so clearly email centric.
Posted by Mark at 09:24 PM
Actuals
Just updated and posted my actual training times after 4 1/2 weeks of training for the Halloween marathon.
Some of my colleagues who were going to run alongside me are instead opting to go on vacation in Jordan. I suppose a marathon is not enough reason to stay home. Maybe they're just not weird enough.
Posted by Mark at 09:16 PM
26:48/158
Ran 6 1/4 km (about 4 mi) with Nigel a little faster than I should've. We were chatting and I wasn't really paying attention to the pace.
Posted by Mark at 04:57 PM
July 27, 2005
Back in Barraux
We rolled into Barraux at about 4:30 pm this afternoon, having had a long layover in Paris but no traffic at all at the tunnel de l'Epine.
Didn't sleep much on the plane. Children significantly under adult size do need a different seat, one with which their legs would touch the ground. I find it difficult to sleep while sitting up in a chair. When I also have someone fidgeting in my lap it's even harder. Dead tired now.
Posted by Mark at 07:55 PM
July 26, 2005
Old vacation
Here's an old photo from 1976 that Dana scanned. Matt finally did get those muscles after his undergraduate years when he went to work doing carpentry, carpeting, and so forth.
No, that's not our third brother and black sheep of the family we don't talk about any more. It's just Gully, who we haven't seen in many years.
Posted by Mark at 02:34 PM
34:08/155 (4 x hill)
Ran about 1.6 mi (2.7 km) warm up and cool down with 4 repeats about 175 yards (160 m) uphill in front of Mom and Dana's house. Total of 4 mi (6.4 km).
The humidity seems very high indeed. I ran the warm up slowly, then the repeats hard to very hard. After the repeats I couldn't cool down, and my heart rate stayed in the 151-160 range on, climbing to 165 when I came back up the hill. Good thing I'll take over 24 hours off now.
Posted by Mark at 02:23 PM
July 25, 2005
1:14:55/158
Ran 10 mi (16 km) at Barker track. (The link is to the Google satellite view.) It rained for most of the 40 laps. The time includes one bio break, causing me to complete the first lap in 2:33, and a tenth mile at an increasingly faster pace. I started the last 4 laps at 1:08:38 and kept increasing the pace until I finished at a sprint.
My intention is to have this count for both today and tomorrow's run, since we're flying back to France tomorrow, and so I won't really have time to run Wednesday. Tomorrow I ought to run 4 hill repeats as planned for Wednesday.
This run was going to be at Krueger. Dana thought maybe they had an asphalt track. Instead it turned out when I drove over there that not only was it also a cinder track, but furthermore there was a drum and bugle corps practicing on the football field in the middle of the track. So I went back over to Barker. Had plenty of small cinders in my shoes by the time I finished. The track at what used to be Elston High School looks more promising, but I imagine it's not open to the public.
Posted by Mark at 06:39 PM
Portrait photographer, part IV
Tim took this one of his sisters, looks like the Pinhook bog parking area:
I had to crop out the porta-pot he caught in its entirety.
Posted by Mark at 12:48 AM
Swimming pool
Donna, Mom's neighbor, let us use their swimming pool. The kids were having a blast.
Tim seems to have forgotten most of what he learned, however. He needs to swim more regularly.
Posted by Mark at 12:40 AM
Walk
It was warm this afternoon. No strenuous exercise today, but after Dad left for Indianapolis, I went out for a 3 mi walk.
Although I'd been in the air conditioned house for hours, I started sweating quite noticeably after about a mile. By 2.4 mi, I was very sweaty. Tim came out and slowed me down for a very easy last lap, but it was still too hot to cool down.
Posted by Mark at 12:35 AM
Flowers, part II
From my mother's garden:
Some of the flowers are burning up with 95 F (35 C) weather. The humidity is such that the dew point is 75 F (24 C). Dana says that makes the temperature feel higher 100 F (38 C).
Posted by Mark at 12:28 AM
July 24, 2005
Running form
From these photos, Emma looks like she has more relaxed running form than her dad:
Maybe she'll do better than I'm doing if she ever decides to run regularly.
Posted by Mark at 05:50 PM
Family and country
Debra and Matt were here but took off before we got the camera out. This one of the grandparents and grandchildren shows you Dana's American flag.
One of the first things I noticed when we came to Michigan City from the airport was the huge American flag being flown by an ice cream place off the highway. Their flag is truly large, apparently about the size of a house.
People in the US have always flown flags more than people in Europe it seems. But only since 9/11 have I noticed as many flags, banners, and stickers.
Posted by Mark at 05:20 PM | Comments (2)
Day off, part VIII
No strenuous exercise today. Continuing to read Lore of Running I notice again that all coaches and serious athletes recommend rest as a key part of training.
One obvious addition to that is Tim Noakes's view on how to conduct training, one that he got from an earlier expert. Noakes suggests that all training is an experiment, and turns out most effective if conducted as a scientific experiment. You begin with a hypothesis such as, "This training program can allow me to run 5% faster for 10 km at 80% of max. heart rate." Then you test that hypothesis. An additional hypothesis may be that these improvements will let me run a marathon 5% faster. That would be tested less frequently but nevertheless tested.
I realize I've been training for a long time without testing hypotheses like these. Hmm.
Posted by Mark at 04:34 PM
July 23, 2005
Mini triathlon, part II
The first leg of today's mini triathlon was this morning's run.
After lunch, I went for a ride around Michigan City. Although scattered thundershowers and high temperatures were predicted for today, I missed the rain and had only a few breezes with which to contend. Some spots in the road were awful, however, the worst being the mile of Meer Road between 800 N and 900 N. I took a little detour, not identified on my route map, to ride past 209 Southwood where we lived from 1981-1984 before Mom and Dana moved us out here. There's still a basketball goal on the garage.
The final event was croquet, which Tim set up. I beat Mom, Matt, Emma, Dad, and Tim on Tim's not very regulation course. He's still out there with Matt. I guess he's trying to learn to juggle.
Posted by Mark at 11:51 PM
Beads
Tim, Emma, and even Diane have been making beads over the last few days with Mom:
Tim's getting pretty good. As you see he's even able to make fruit.
Posted by Mark at 09:14 PM
Invisible tour
I cannot seem to watch the live version of the Tour de France from here, at least not from the official site. Or I'd need to register with someone, or try to find the Outdoor Life Network on TV.
It looks like Armstrong is riding another good time trial behind Ullrich. Should be finished in another few minutes.
Update: Ullrich's in first place right now, 01:12:09:090 for 55.5 km. Avg. speed: 45.74km/h. Yet Armstrong's still closing in.
Update II: Looks like Armstrong beat Ullrich and won, 01:11:46:030.
Posted by Mark at 05:20 PM
1:42:10/152
According to Gmaps Pedometer, I ran almost 22 km instead of 21. The thing is, that last little bit of what's on the map as Lake Shore Drive is in fact sand with beach grass on it. So I ran around the back to Highland Drive.
My pace for this morning was 4:39/km (7:29/mi), which is about 14 s/km too fast, according to the pace from Daniels's VDOT tables. Yet the pace was not the same all along. I did run the first 13 km at what felt like the right speed for a long run, then sped up a bit. At one point after I sped up I was running along behind a guy taking a stroll on his bicycle, adjusting my pace to his. I eased off after a couple of stops, then sped up again later.
Matt once suggested that going up over your limit for a short while in training could help you push that threshold back. It's a sort of fartlek. A lot easier for me to enjoy than my race pace training and tempo runs.
When I was reading Tim Noakes book Lore of Running last night, I tried his suggestion that you press or pinch your legs in several spots, and if you have soreness you might be training too hard. Yesterday evening I had a few spots that were very slightly sore. Right now, nothing is sore to the touch.
My knees feel a tiny bit sore, as do the tips of a couple of toes, but that's to be expected after more than a half marathon distance. Nothing that's really bothering me. I do enjoy these long runs more than hard runs. I'd probably enjoy the hard runs more if I weren't on vacation eating so much, then going out running when the dew point is 71 F (22 C).
Posted by Mark at 04:40 PM
Mount Baldy
Mom, Dad, Nath, and I took Tim, Emma, and Diane to Mount Baldy (satellite picture from Google maps) this afternoon.
The weather was nice, breezy and about 75 F (24 C), with the water roughly that same temperature. We flew kites for a little while, then the bigger kids spent a whole hour standing in the waves, waiting for the big ones to wash over them.
After that we flew kites a while longer before coming home. Never had to carry Diane at all. She was having such a good time.
Posted by Mark at 03:04 AM
July 22, 2005
Why Gender Matters
Dad gave me a book called Why Gender Matters. The author, Dr. Sax, revealed things we didn't know about children, like the fact that girls hear better than boys, and that girls are biologically less prone to dangerous games. (It's not just learned behavior.)
I found the section on discipline most interesting and potentially useful. Given my own experience I tend to think people who act obediently without knowing why put themselves in a position to be manipulated most dangerously. But that's more clearly a problem for adults than for children. In fact children appear to develop their own capacity to remain independent in the face of social pressures if they have non-negotiable discipline while growing up.
Posted by Mark at 04:59 PM
40:43/166
Today's 6 mi (9.7 km) race pace run was at Barker track. Either somebody raked it, or the rain smoothed it out. The track was even and the cinders more level than the last time I went.
Posted by Mark at 04:57 PM
July 21, 2005
Michigan City zoo
After we decided an 80% chance of thundershowers and a predicted high of 91 F (33 C) with over 80% humidity ruled out going to Lake Shafer tomorrow, we went to the lakefront at Washington Park, then the zoo.
The kids favorite part was when the monkey showed us his hind end as a sort of greeting, but I only caught that on tape, not as a digital photo.
Posted by Mark at 09:33 PM
Dinner
This shot of dinner Wednesday evening is just to show that Paul and Evelyn were here. They both seem to be doing well.
Posted by Mark at 09:31 PM
24:37/145
Ran something on the order of 3 1/4 mi (5 1/4 km) at an easy pace this morning. I was wearing the MP3 player.
By tucking the headphone line into my heart monitor chest band, I kept the jolts from knocking the phones out of my ears. That doesn't help music from being a distraction. But today is an easy day, so I wasn't particularly focused anyway.
Posted by Mark at 03:45 PM
Hocus Pocus
In the midst of several open books, Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut is one that's now finished. Hocus Pocus tells the story of Eugene Debs Hartke who meandered through life as a river flows downhill, ending up wisely travel worn but lower than he started out, at least in some ways.
I had the choice between Hocus Pocus and Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp, since Debra and Matt lent me these books. I've not yet tried the exercises in chapter 1 of the book on Lisp.
Hocus Pocus is one I no doubt read before. Another advantage of having such a bad memory is that you can enjoy stories whose endings you've already heard.
My favorite Vonnegut stories are the ones by Kilgore Trout, the ones Vonnegut only outlines, but then keeps referring to. Vonnegut manages that with science fiction stories as well as Borges ever did without science fiction. In Hocus Pocus, Trout's featured story concerns The Protocols of the Elders of Tralfamadore, "intelligent threads of energy trillions of light years long" who decide to spread life through the universe, and determine the best life to spread would be very tough germs, which could deal with the rough interstellar conditions. So the elders eventually get people on earth to set up hostile conditions for germs, preparing the germs for space travel, easily manipulating humans to do their bidding.
It's residually depressing to notice how Vonnegut, a smart cookie and a good writer, has his protagonists coming gently to the conclusion that we are a bunch of mental basket cases. I should've read the stuff on Lisp instead. At least when you read that book, you get the impression that although you are stupid, somebody out there isn't.
Posted by Mark at 06:27 AM
Broken camera, part IV
Just when you think you know what you're doing, you realize you have no idea how this stuff works:
Proof that Tim's camera seems to have worked now that format pronounced it unusable. Unfortunately I'm confident I'll never recover those pictures from the top of the Sears Tower.
Posted by Mark at 01:18 AM
Broken camera, part III
Something's not right with the flash memory on Tim's camera.
C:\DOCUME~1\USER>format e: /fs:fat Insert new disk for drive E: and press ENTER when ready... The type of the file system is FAT. Verifying 10M Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable.
Notice the last line.
Posted by Mark at 01:10 AM
Broken camera, part II
Tim's little digital camera, the one we took to Chicago and then couldn't get the photos from, now seems to be partly broken. I can get it to work as a webcam and that's all:
Would you buy a used car from this guy?
Posted by Mark at 12:47 AM
July 20, 2005
Circus
With Mom's help, Tim and Emma are preparing for the circus downstairs:
I've been told I'll have a job as a juggler.
Posted by Mark at 05:36 PM
35:00/165
Today's tempo run carried me just over 4 15/16 mi (7 19/20 km), nearly 3 of those miles being at 7:30/mi pace and slower. I know the distance almost exactly because I ran it on the track at Barker, which is a cinder track. My shoes are quite dirty from running over there.
For the fourth mile, I ran faster than race pace, roughly a 6:05 mile after having run a 6:30 mile. Hal Higdon once quoted Jack Daniels, who popularized the tempo run, on how you shouldn't run at high intensity too often. '"Achieving that level once every two weeks or so is fine," says Daniels, "but if you train to that intensity in practice too often, you won't have anything left for competition." Except during periods when you're not racing, workouts should never approach race-level intensity.' (Source: Hal's site)
What I'm trying to learn from marathon training is how to improve over the long term. One of the basic ideas has begun to become clear to me now that I've been running steadily for the last 3 years or so. That basic idea could be stated as, Train at a level of intensity that you can maintain for a long time yet that amounts to more than you naturally want to do.
Dana and I have both experienced that point in running where it feels very smooth, almost effortless, and indeed satisfying. It often happens to me around kilometer 7 to about kilometer 10 or 12 of a longer run. It seems to happen during easy runs. Dana's take on that experience seemed to be that that sensation is a brief reward for training up to the point where you experience that feeling, and that you might want to run a marathon at about that pace.
The way I see it, if you feel that way you could be running harder, at least in a race.
Dana almost appeared surprised that you'd run a whole marathon feeling stressed, late, wondering if you can hold the pace. Yet that set of sensations is the set I feel when running my personal best times for any distance. The thing is, it takes lots of preparation to get ready to run a personal best. Training is definitely the most agreeable part of the race.
Maybe that's another basic idea connected with improving over the long term, that training should seem more fun than racing.
Posted by Mark at 05:04 PM
P & G and Satan
One of the things Dana had decided about the Internet was that the worst misinformation came not from dishonest WWW publishers, but from well-meaning friends and relatives forwarding email of the urban legend variety. A long time ago, he got one about Proctor & Gamble:
PLEASE MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The President of Procter & gamble appeared on the Phil Donahue Show on March 1, 1994. He announced that due to the openness of our society, he was coming out of the closet about his association with the church of Satan. He stated that a large portion of his profits from Procter & Gamble Products goes to support this satanic church. When asked by Donahue if stating this on t.v. would hurt his business, he replied, "THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE."
Googling to a writeup of this urban legend, in which you can read the full text of the email, I noticed the Google ad on the top left:
Proctor & Gamble Careers
Land your dream job. Search 900,000 job listings. Apply online now.
I guess if you're going to hell anyway, you'd better get a head start up the career ladder.
Posted by Mark at 03:09 AM
Chicago, part II
We had plenty of visibility from the Sears Tower. It was also relatively cool in downtown Chicago with a light breeze.
Unfortunately we took Tim's camera and the photos seem to have become corrupted. Mom and Dana's computer cannot download anything from the device.
Also unfortunately we walked all the way to Gino's Pizza, only to find something on the door about the place being closed. It looks like they've been shut down by the health department or something. I think I had the wrong one, over on Rush.
At least Water Tower Place is close by there so we found somewhere to eat before Emma starved to death. After walking all the way up there from the Sears Tower -- must've been two miles in addition to the approx. mile we walked over to the Sears Tower from the Millenium Park garage -- she was famished and complaining. Her disappointment vanished however as soon as she had food and realized she'd be shopping right after lunch.
Nathalie bought her some clothes. Tim and I stood outside in the mall and looked bored. Nathalie tried to look for some clothes of her own, but then Emma got involved. The only shopping they could agree on was clothes for Emma.
Tim and I stood outside and looked bored some more. Tim finally found a small TV in the back of one of the stores, so he watched that.
When we got out of Chicago at 3:30 pm, the traffic was already getting bad. So we took the Skyway back to Indiana. Made it home by about 4:30 pm. Mom said Diane had eaten 6 times today.
Posted by Mark at 12:10 AM
July 19, 2005
Chicago
We're now trying to get the bigger children ready to ride into Chicago. Nathalie wants them to see the Sears Tower and downtown Chicago because it's something they won't see in France. Diane's staying with her Grandmother because we don't feel like carrying her all over Chicago.
I'd rather finishing reading at least one of the books I've started. Yet I know that if we stayed home it would not be possible to do that. The children wouldn't want to read their books.
Tim wants to go see Revenge of the Sith again. He's still completely absorbed by the Star Wars saga. We saw the movie together a couple of nights ago. He didn't even mind going to see it in English. The important thing was to see how Anakin went over to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader.
He only understood part of it. What he understood was that Anakin went over to the Dark Side because he loved Padmé so much. On the way home in the car he told me he'd never have a girlfriend because attachment would interfere with his Jedi training.
Posted by Mark at 03:31 PM
46:03/148
Ran these 6 mi (9.7 km) easy. This morning was cooler than other mornings, but I felt lazy. I read for about an hour too before going out.
Diane had lost her pacifier during the night. The pacifier had fallen under her covers, and she couldn't find it. So she arrived in our bed at 5:45 am expecting me to go look for the lost pacifier, which I did. Shortly after I brought it back to her she fell asleep in the middle of our bed. But she was still kicking. After she kicked me in the crotch a couple of times and pushed me away, I decided to walk out to the couch and lie down there with my book.
Posted by Mark at 03:25 PM
July 18, 2005
Reference & editorial quality
I was wondering what business model would work for encyclopedias these days. Dana and I had been talking about the editorial quality of reference information published on the world wide web. Such information is almost always of dubious origin, and most Internet publishers have such little incentive to go to the same lengths as paper publishers such as Encyclopedia Britannica that unsuspecting readers not keeping caveat lector in mind may eventually consider everything on the web should be taken with a grain of salt.
From a macroeconomic standpoint, it seems like one solution might involve funnelling some library funding to folks with an established reputation in exchange for their publishing to Googleable locations. Would it end up cheaper for society to handle the problem the way it handles other public information services?
Dana thinks perhaps not. He says money is one of the deciding factors in getting reference publishers to maintain their reputations through careful attention to editorial quality. I'm still undecided.
The current business models for those guys do seem a bit ridiculous, however, even though the information they contain is doubtless of much higher quality than most things one finds while surfing.
Posted by Mark at 10:08 PM
Wabi-Sabi
My mother has a book called Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. What got me reading it was the back cover claiming the author, Leonard Koren, got his start with a magazine about gourmet bathing. Koren's also apparently written a short treatise on How to Rake Leaves.
My encounter with Koren's book was like Dylan's Mr. Jones showing up at a party. It's tough to leave that experience without thinking of Russell and Whitehead, who on p. 362 of Principia Mathematica finally arrived at the staggering conclusion that, "From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1+1=2."
We certainly have enough earnestness to attain enlightenment. Is enlightenment close to seeing all the levels of irony superimposed?
Posted by Mark at 03:42 PM
21:15/153
Not sure exactly how far this was, since I ran around the small circle of the subdivision instead of the large one. The large one has a significant hill, and I felt both like running counterclockwise and avoiding hills.
I scanned Dr. Cooper's book on Aerobics yesterday in the car, learning that my two short and easy runs of the week should theoretically be enough to maintain my current fitness level. All the rest is thus training.
Posted by Mark at 03:37 PM
Overdressed
Diane and the other children went to a junk store and found some old clothes.
A little overdressed for age 3 if you ask me. You should see her walk in the high heels.
Posted by Mark at 12:10 AM
July 17, 2005
Fire
Matt has an outdoor fireplace contraption that he used last night on his back porch:
The weather was far too warm for a fire, but the children were happy to stay up past their bedtimes.
Posted by Mark at 11:53 PM
Debra & Matt's
The children were glad to see everyone today here at Debra & Matt's in Ann Arbor. They especially like the two cats.
We also saw Tam, Taletha, Julie, Jim, and Loraine. They'll be back tomorrow for more family get together time.
Posted by Mark at 02:24 AM
July 16, 2005
American style, part II
Emma lost the weight she seemed to have gained. So to celebrate she baked chocolate chip peanut butter cookies with Mamy Teena:
Yet Emma ate fewer than her brother and her sister. And her dad, too.
Posted by Mark at 03:18 PM
Miller Bakery Cafe
Nath and I went to the Miller Bakery Cafe in Gary last night for dinner. The food sure seemed delicious to us. We both had some fish and Nath also had penne with a very full flavored wild mushroom light cream sauce. Casa la Joya Chardonnay with the meal.
The neighborhood's a little less classy than the menu, however. At one of the two liquor stores across the street from another a woman was asking for our change. On the way in we got turned around in the wrong direction and saw two adult toy stores and three "gentlemen's clubs" within about a mile and a half.
Posted by Mark at 03:10 PM
57:15/150
7.8 mi (12.6 km) this morning at a relatively easy pace. My shoes were soaked by the end of the run, although it was only about 73-74 F (23 C) when I ran. Humidity stands at about 86% according to Weather.com.
Today I ran for the first 3-4 mi with an MP3 player I bought. The player works fine, but the headphones have a tendency to get pulled out as I run, due to little tugs on the cord. It'll probably be easier to wear on the bike.
Posted by Mark at 03:04 PM
July 15, 2005
41:07/164
The air felt too humid although the air temperature was only 74 F (23 C) this morning. A few raindrops fell by end of this 6 mi (9.7 km) marathon pace run at the Barker track.
My heart shouldn't be working that hard. Instead of 84.5% of max. it should be at about 82%. Part of it was the humidity. Part of it is the amount of food we've been eating over here, and especially the amount of meat (twice a day). My intestines feel like bratwursts.
Posted by Mark at 03:55 PM
10th anniversary
Nathalie and I were married 10 years ago today in Desvres, France. Guess I should go find a nice restaurant for dinner.
Posted by Mark at 12:37 AM
July 14, 2005
21:45/143
3 miles upon returning from northern Michigan. Got my pacing all wrong, thought I was late and ran too fast again.
We'd spent hours in the car feeling warm in the front seat despite air conditioning. At Benton Harbor we went through a storm, then it cleared up again. Now it feels like rain is on the way here, so it was nice to get out and run in the cool breeze.
Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM
DH Day campground
DH Day's not nearly as nice as the walk-ins by Platte River, but by the time we arrived all those had been taken. Where we ended up there was scads of poison ivy, and the toilets smelled quite disagreeably, but it could've been worse.
We had two sites adjacent to each other. Nathalie and I "slept" next to the three little ones. Emma had a sore throat and was coughing all night. They all claimed to have had a wonderful time. Nathalie just hopes she'll sleep well tonight.
Posted by Mark at 01:11 AM
July 13, 2005
Otter creek
Lake Michigan was warm enough the fish were languidly and unguardedly sunbathing, too. Tim caught a minnow with his bare hands:
The weather and water were nice enough in the morning that Tim and Emma weren't even disagreeable with each other:
Mom and Nathalie were a little overheaded, though:
They ended up taking it easy while waiting for the children to burn off excess energy.
Posted by Mark at 01:02 AM
Dunes
Here are a couple of shots looking north at Sleeping Bear:
We took these from one of the lookouts off the Pierce Stocking scenic drive.
Posted by Mark at 12:50 AM
30:31/154
This tempo run I did from the DH Day campground to the dune climb on the inland side of Sleeping Bear dune and back. Here's where I turned around:
If you look closely, you'll notice the signs reserving the best parking spots next to the dune face for the handicapped. If you're going to push your wheelchair up that, you certainly do deserve to get prime parking.
My run felt okay, but the weather was muggy. The heart rate seems low compared to other similar runs.
Posted by Mark at 12:32 AM
July 12, 2005
At the library
I took a print out of my Amazon.com wish list to the Michigan City Public Library, where I hoped to browse the contents and determine what to buy while I'm within the perimeter of free shipping for US books.
The library only had 2 items of the 15. One problem for example is that I'm doing the wrong sport. The library had maybe one or two outdated books on marathoning, but full shelves of books on basketball.
Once I start browsing though, I find book after book that I'd like to read if only I had the time.
There were only a few books on being a librarian. The job looks mostly organizational with plenty of management of people and budgets. If you want to read for work, I guess you have to do research.
Posted by Mark at 02:39 PM | Comments (2)
46:19/141
Felt tired for these 6 mi. Maybe I'm not sleeping enough.
Outside the humidity was very high, since it rained late last night. It was warm enough at 5:30 am when I started running that I had trouble breathing smoothly, and everything felt out of order.
Posted by Mark at 02:37 PM
July 11, 2005
21:24/151
This time represents something quite close to 3 mi (4.8 km), or 5 * .6 mi around the subdivision where Mom and Dana live.
None of that is completely flat. Their house sits at the top of a small hill, so either way you start, you end up going quickly right away and finishing the lap working a little harder than you did for the rest of it. I find it difficult to pace myself appropriately.
Posted by Mark at 10:16 PM
Restful yard
Mom's yard looked restful at 5 am this morning.
Unfortunately the photos from our camcorder don't do it justice. All you can see is the dominant greens and browns, not the small areas of color that make those seem even deeper.
Posted by Mark at 03:14 PM
American style
After eating a bunch of grease-laden food at Redamak's, home of The "Hamburger" that made New Buffalo, MI Famous! and other mistakenly used double quotes, Nath and Emma settled in to life in the rec room, American style:
They're now watching a DIY program called Sell this House!
Posted by Mark at 12:39 AM | Comments (2)
Thunderstorms on the way
We're sort of expecting to go camping up by Traverse City this week. But Nathalie was watching the weather channel, and said we may have rain. Yahoo weather predicts a slight chance of "Isolated Thunderstorms" on Wednesday.
Not sure we want to be in a tent during a thunderstorm, but we'll probably go. We won't try to make fondue, but instead just s'mores and hot dogs.
Posted by Mark at 12:06 AM
Broken camera
Emma got a tiny digital camera for her birthday from Mom. I couldn't download the pictures. The camera itself is supposed to download over USB. Not only do you have to reboot XP to get the driver to load -- I thought USB was supposed to make it easier to get around that -- but the software also doesn't notice the pictures that the camera itself seems to have noticed.
I guess Mom'll have to take it back, see if we can get one that works like the one Tim got.
Posted by Mark at 12:01 AM
July 10, 2005
Pinhook bog
Mom signed us up for the 1-hour tour this morning at Pinhook bog. Here are some carnivorous flowers that trap insects by getting them to stick to the tips.
The bog is a clay bowl left by the last ice age 14,000 years ago. It's been filling up for the last 4 thousand years, and currently has enough moss on top that even oak trees manage to grow in the middle. What the children liked best however was the blueberries that grew all along the trail where we walked.
Posted by Mark at 06:51 PM
Multiple birthdays
Mom and Dana had an enormous box of presents for everyone.
The kids had a whale of a time opening them up and playing.
Posted by Mark at 01:34 AM
Short ride
My brother and I went out to for a short ride this afternoon. It took us about 43 minutes, but we were stopped at Johnson Road for about 30 seconds, and Matt's chain came off on a dirt part of 400 W, our Paris-Roubaix segment complete with a washboard section.
So the average speed was not quite 30 kph, actually 18.4 mph.
Posted by Mark at 12:33 AM
July 09, 2005
DVD regions and languages
The children are watching a Scooby Doo DVD from the La Porte County Public Library... in French. Tim wants to buy Star Wars DVDs here, since they also have French soundtracks. The trouble is the DVD regions. I guess we're not in the same region as the US, and so theoretically our player won't be able to read DVDs we buy here.
It's too bad. Two of the Star Wars DVDs in question look about twice as expensive in France.
Posted by Mark at 05:11 PM
1:25:14/149
Today I ran along Lake Shore Drive, 18 km (about 11 mi). I'd planned the route using Gmaps Pedometer, which made it easy to see where to stop and turn around.
That point turned out to be at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Pokagon Trail, just beyond the Michigan border.
I met lots of joggers and a runner. Except for the runner, I may have been the youngest guy out there. Long Beach is an upscale place for the Michigan City area, so perhaps the people living there are older, and I was out with the natives, having started just before 6 am.
Yet it's also possible that early morning runs involve mainly people over 35, and thus in less danger of having been out for a good time last night.
My legs are tired now. Though I took Wednesday off for the plane trip, I did do speedwork two days in a row on Thursday and Friday, and added a couple hours of biking Thursday afternoon. It's probably alright to take tomorrow off as planned.
Posted by Mark at 05:01 PM
July 08, 2005
Kayaking
Mom took us to Pine Lake this noon. The kids went swimming and tried out her kayak. Tim was actually able to paddle around. Emma and Diane needed towing, but enjoyed it a lot.
I finally had to bribe them to get them out of the water. Told them we'd go get ice cream. We went to Dairy Queen, where all the desert sizes were too big for small French children. So Emma finished hers, but Tim and Diane couldn't manage.
Posted by Mark at 11:02 PM
8:43/180
After running 5 mi at an easy pace, I felt like running Cooper's 1.5 mi test since I was on a 1/4 mile track, and only did 1 dose of speed work this week with the hill repeats yesterday.
Had I not misremembered Cooper's tables, I'd've pushed it a little harder. I thought the fastest category required that you do it in less than 8:45; instead you have to do it in less than 8:37... if you're a guy in the 13-19 age group. For guys in the 30-39 category you get 10 minutes.
Posted by Mark at 05:31 PM
39:20/149
This morning it was still cool. I went to the track at Barker, where I probably last ran more than 20 years ago. It's a 440-yard track, rather than 400 m. I ran 5 mi (8 km) in 20 laps.
After 1 3/4 miles I was getting better at holding the 7:52/mi pace without looking at my watch. Yet I've still a long way to go before I'll be able to judge my pace within a few seconds per lap without a watch.
Posted by Mark at 05:26 PM
July 07, 2005
Plane seats and kids
We flew from Lyon to Paris, then Paris to Chicago yesterday with Air France. There were lots of Polish speaking people in our area of the long flight. There were also lots of people with huge quanties of luggage. There was in fact so much luggage on the carousel the guy operating it kept having to stop it and let people pick off some of their bags. I had the impression most travellers had at least one piece of luggage they could barely lift.
In the plane we had difficulty with the girls. They weren't big enough to sleep in their seats, and in fact could not really get comfortable. That's a shame. The airlines are able to handle special meals for the children, but they haven't figured out how to do seat inserts or whatever would be needed to have children sleep through (part of) the flight.
They did sleep in the car on the way to Mom's from O'Hare. Then they caught a second wind until about 9:30 pm local time. I managed to sleep the following 6 hours until they started making enough noise at 3:30 am that somebody had to get up. So Mom and I kept them occupied.
Posted by Mark at 11:46 PM
31.1 mi
After lunch, Dana and I rode a leisurely 31.1 mi (50.0 km) around La Porte county. Dana had fixed up his Trek upright bicycle. I still might need to borrow or buy some less worn SPD pedals, but otherwise his bike is pretty good.
Many roads around here a considerably nicer than in my memory of this area. Dana says they did get worse until some point where the state government decided to fix the road surfaces, and now even many of the less travelled roads are in good shape.
Posted by Mark at 11:42 PM
27:33/165
Ran 4.2 mi (6.8 km) today, including 3 roughly 160 m hill repeats within that distance. This was 7 laps around my parents' subdivision, and an attempt to combine the speedwork I missed yesterday with the easy run for today.
I ran a bit too fast, especially on the laps including hill reps. My intention during vacation to work on pace, but I'll do that at the track.
Posted by Mark at 11:37 PM
July 06, 2005
Mom's from space
I'm late to the party, having not looked at Google Maps since the announcement of its existence appeared. But you can get satellite views of the US.
Here's a link to Mom's neighborhood as seen from space. The yard does look pretty shady now.
Posted by Mark at 05:20 AM
Religious, part II
Thinking more about Crichton's speech, I guess I would sum up what bothers me as follows.
Crichton suggests people who think of themselves as environmentalists as religious nuts unwilling to discuss their views rationally. He makes a relatively convincing argument, so if you don't examine it critically, you can come away thinking Crichton has proved environmentalists are religious nuts, and therefore can reasonably be ignored. Yet Crichton himself visibly constructs the argument without fully examining the situation, arguing as a lawyer rather than a scientist.
Clearly some part of what motivates people who consider themselves concerned by our impact on our environment could be called aesthetics. Andy wrote about this in his blog.
Another part of what motivates people concerned about our environment may be common sense. If you have lived near a busy intersection as we used to in Strasbourg, have commuted regularly in traffic, or have biked during rush hour, you no doubt sense from time to time that although getting around and hauling stuff in cars and trucks can be handy, it's also noisy, smelly, and perhaps even unhealthy.
A small part of what motivates the environmentally concerned may in fact be understanding of research results. Crichton may not in fact overgeneralize about this in his speech, but his approach works to help the reader overgeneralize. Even inconclusive findings could lead cautious scientists to suggest we take action to prevent potentially catastrophic impact from some aspects of our lifestyles, but the speech doesn't leave you thinking about that as a possibility.
Some part of what motivates environmentalists is also a sort of religious conviction. That helps Crichton's smear stick. It also causes what can be seen as overreaction when someone who feels conviction about wasteful or polluting behavior confronts someone doing the wasting or polluting. If the person wasting or polluting heard Crichton, of course he may already have decided he doesn't have to listen to this religious nut (particularly if Crichton helped him rationalize behavior that he himself half felt was wasteful or polluting).
In the end, because Crichton's suggested remedies seem so weak and hard to implement, because his argument seems to belong in the courtroom rather than the classroom, and because it encourages rationalization of potentially disasterous social behavior, leaving not only the resolution but even the consideration of the problem to experts, I feel an accomplished author like Crichton could do much better.
Posted by Mark at 04:22 AM
July 05, 2005
Ad feeds
C|Net's got an article from the NYT about how advertising is now going into RSS. I've already seen ads from Sun coming through the feed from Slashdot.
There's no escape. Somebody should've added an <Ad> element to RSS long ago. Then filtering would be a no brainer.
Posted by Mark at 08:54 PM
39:32/158
8 km with Phil. My max. heart rate is perhaps wrong. I realized it's easy to chat at what's supposed to be 80-81% of the max., so it seems like it ought to be higher than that.
Posted by Mark at 01:19 PM
Globalization and Its Discontents
Joseph Stiglitz won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, and the center left gave Globalization and Its Discontents one good reviews. What's telling is that a Nobel prize winning economist who spent years near the very center of power has to go on for 274 pages just to suggest that if economic policies were geared to increasing the low end and median share of the pie rather than improving the outlook for top end players in the financial markets, the fruits of economic policies would be more widely shared.
In other words, debate about the basic goals for a globalized economy ain't quick and easy.
Have readers learned anything of substance? Not sure.
Posted by Mark at 08:40 AM
July 04, 2005
To bloat or not to bloat
Paul Krugman of the NYT wrote a column called Girth of a Nation. Maybe this was for Americans having too much barbecued food today and feeling guilty about that.
The Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group financed by Coca-Cola, Wendy's and Tyson Foods, among others, has a Fourth of July message for you: worrying about the rapid rise in American obesity is unpatriotic.
Center for Consumer Freedom? "Defending enjoyment is what we're all about!" Check out their Declaration of Food Independence.
Posted by Mark at 09:00 PM
Disagreement
The Register's running a story about Alex Hanff, who was fired by Aldcliffe Computer Systems for declaring, "that he is opposed to copyright and intellectual property laws." The employer concluded, "Since much of our business is based around the protection of our copyright and intellectual property, we consider our dismissal of Mr Hanff entirely justified and appropriate."
Huh? If I express views in public that are contrary to those of my employer, my employer reserves the right to can me. Now that's incentive for strategic alignment, right?
If you're an employer, do you believe that sort of strategic alignment is good for your business? Do you believe when workers kiss your butt it keeps them motivated, making them more productive?
You may have a more attractive butt than most of us, but I nevertheless tend to disagree.
Posted by Mark at 08:28 PM
24:26/153
Ran this morning to avoid rain or heat, whichever we have. I ended up running too fast in the middle and had to stop and walk at the end to avoid finishing too early.
Posted by Mark at 08:56 AM
Lost keys
We're expecting thunderstorms today, so I didn't ride into work.
Instead I spent 45 minutes this morning looking for my car keys. Nathalie helped for the last 15, so that's a total of an hour.
They keys it turns out were underneath a Barbie doll in the Barbie car in Emma's room. Diane apparently decided to put them there yesterday.
Posted by Mark at 08:53 AM
July 03, 2005
1:12:34
We're supposed to have thunderstorms tomorrow, and after watching the last 2 hours of today's Tour de France stage, I decided to ride even though I'm scheduled to rest. I'd already cut the lawn and cut down a sort of bush, which was tiring though not aerobic.
The guys riding in the Tour de France amaze me as much as top marathoners. Today they rode 181.5 km (112.8 mi) overall 115 m uphill in 3:51:31. That's 46.6 kph (29.0 mph) for almost 4 hours!
Granted, I didn't have anybody to ride behind. Yet even working hard, starting and ending at the same elevation, I only rode 33.2 kph (20.6 mph) for 40.2 km (25.0 mi).
The guy who won today's stage, Tom Boonen, is slightly taller than me and only a bit lighter. On the other hand, what I have around my waist in the form of fat, he has on his quads in the form of muscle. He's also nearly 10 years younger, and probably cycles 20 hours/week more than I do.
Surely if I'd just shave my legs I could go 1 kph faster. Also, I notice the guys on the tour never have to stop for intersections or trains going through Pontcharra.
Posted by Mark at 08:17 PM
Video capture, part XX
We now have 15 SVCD images on our home disk, spanning a little over a year of home video. We have 9 source tapes of digital video and one of analog. Most of our analog tapes were sent to the US, where Dad kindly paid to have them moved to VHS. He'd also bought the analog camera, and had given me a gift of a video capture card for the mid 90s, Pentium 100 based PC Tim now has in his room. He did that on my suggestion. I feel bad about squandering his money that way. The mistake was that 10 years ago PCs just weren't powerful enough to handle video. Today they are almost powerful enough.
Only one SVCD was carefully edited. The compressed SVCD video takes up 8.3 GB. The DV format volume was so enormous we don't have space to store it except on tape. The difficulty with editing is that it takes large blocks of time. Part of that is because you have to watch everything in real time. Another part is because I don't know what I'm doing and have to watch sequences multiple times. But a big part of it is that the volumes of data and calculations outstrip what PCs today can easily do.
And I still find it too hard to split audio and video to handle them separately. Or at least I haven't found the right software.
Posted by Mark at 09:29 AM
Video capture, part XIX
transcode wolfs down CPU time like there's no tomorrow. Check out the drop off circled in yellow which is where transcode finished converting .avi to components for making an SVCD:
Even if you're burning standard DVDs, you still have to convert from DV to MPEG, and you'll probably use more CPU in a couple of hours of that than you'll use in weeks of gaming or years of desktop publishing.
What I don't get is that although a really usable, free home video application would be an absolute market maker for both Intel and AMD, you still have to buy a Mac if you're not a propeller head.
Posted by Mark at 07:43 AM | Comments (1)
July 02, 2005
Vegetables, part II
The picture is not of hops, but of lettuce. We had too many heads of it at once and three got away.
Posted by Mark at 08:34 PM
Sizing
Tim's beetle wasn't quite as big as the image I posted a while ago. It was more like this:
Speaking of sizes, I bought some shorts this morning, and now fit into size 42 French pants pretty well, which is usually size 32 US. Last time I was this thin was probably 10 years ago, when Nathalie and I were getting married.
Since my wife is not running and cycling like me, I bet her I could wear her pants. They fit, although the hips were snug. Emma and Diane took advantage of the situation to try on my shorts. Together.
Posted by Mark at 08:28 PM
Overflow, part II
Last night waiting to watch a late movie, and today while capturing a couple of hours of video onto disk I continued email triage. I've almost caught up with the backlog; only 30 emails that need action remain in my Inbox at work.
Email's a boon and an epidemic, similar in some ways to desktop publishing and blogging. Most of us are guilty of letting quanity squelch quality. Any long term solutions to the problems must take that fact into account.
Posted by Mark at 08:15 PM
Mischief and regression
While I was web surfing, Diane went to use the toilet. First she peed on the seat, though. Never said a thing.
After using the toilet, she decided to add an entire roll of toilet paper. That wasn't dissolving fast enough, so she started mixing it with her hands. This only took a couple of minutes.
Emma and I didn't realize what was going on until she slipped on a wad of toilet paper, fell on the floor, and started whining. Is it true that at 3, you're not old enough to know better than to play in the pot where you pissed?
Tim's been doing a lot of childish things as well, as if he were uncomfortable with his age, feeding his sister plastic beads and so forth. Diane's regressed to talking like a baby.
Posted by Mark at 02:21 PM
Monopoly purchases immunity
Microsoft made a huge payout to Sun a while ago, and also handed out money to AOL and Gateway. Now according to The Register Microsoft's paying IBM to keep that company quiet as well.
Does somebody want to remind us all how this is going to be good for consumers?
On the other hand, you have to admit this looks a lot more intelligent than the old "Freedom to Innovate" campaign. BTW, if you want to give Microsoft more freedom to innovate, click here for information on how you can help. (Goodness. And I thought our Share campaign was embarrassing.)
Posted by Mark at 02:08 PM
1:12:08/156
Approximately 16 km (10 mi) this morning in Pontcharra while it was still cool and before eating breakfast. I had to stop for a train for about 1 1/2 minutes at one point.
My hope is that going out before eating breakfast and drinking only water with a little bit of unsweetened coffee beforehand will help train the fat burning system.
I not only ran hard yesterday noon, but also cycled hard on the way home. As a result, my legs were tired. Over the last couple or three kilometers, my hamstrings were feeling strained, particularly on my left leg. Yet I now have about 48 hours of relative rest with no aerobic exercise planned. So my body should be able to recover and get stronger.
My first week of actuals are now posted. Those count running but not riding.
Posted by Mark at 01:11 PM
Summer vacation
The children are now on summer vacation as of this noon. Nathalie already has a headache, although it may not yet be related to their vacation.
Emma was so enthusiastic she actually wanted to get up and go to school this morning for the last day. Timothee's tadpole died, and he was sad about that when he returned from school. Now he's planning how he's going to spend his money this summer.
Posted by Mark at 01:06 PM
July 01, 2005
Extensions
Ludo told me once about a bookmark synchronization extension to Firefox. You ftp your bookmarks over to your website and Firefox gets sync'd where you have the extension set up.
So I'm finally getting around to having a look at that. And found another extension, Auto Copy: "Select text and it's automaticaly copied to the clipboard. Like Trillian or mIrc"
Hmm. I thought that was already normal behavior in X. But I guess some windowing systems still don't do that. I tried to do some work on a Windows system a few months ago. It was horrible. Not only does select-paste not work, but the command line support is terrible. None of the software you want is installed, either.
Posted by Mark at 09:18 PM
Tadpole
Tim's growing a tadpole. He started out with 4-5, but the others died. He now has one left, swimming in a tupperware container on his desk.
In the past couple of days, it has grown legs and seems to be breathing by pushing it's mouth above the surface. We're going to have to let it out soon.
Posted by Mark at 08:49 PM
3:11:46
Spent less time than last week biking, as it rained Wednesday and I therefore drove to work and back. This time represents almost 82.4 km (51.2 mi) at average of 25.7 kph (16.0 mph).
My odometer reads 1523.5 km (946.9 mi). It started counting last Christmas, so that's for about 1/2 year.
Posted by Mark at 08:37 PM
33:03/178
I need to go to the track and work on pace.
This was too fast for 8 km at marathon pace. I got to the halfway point at 16:19, 45 seconds too early.
But this was too slow for my heart rate. In other words, I'm more out of shape than I hoped I was. Needs lots of work.
Posted by Mark at 05:25 PM