Uncategorized on Alkahest

Is this thing on?

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 13:51:43 +0000

Let’s see, it’s been about 5 (?!) years since I’ve written anything here. Since then, I’ve gotten married and nowhave a two year old daughter. My old company was acquired by a large defense contractor, I left a few months ago and I’m now working on machine learning for a medical device company. This space may wind up being used to make machine learning notes to myself.

Holy crap... yes we did!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:33:38 +0000

Almost three months ago to the day, I wrote about the senate health care reform (HCR) bill, how they had achieved cloture and would vote on Christmas eve. Since December, things haven’t looked all that good for HCR. A weak candidate in Massachusetts lost to a republican underwear model (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and the Democrats started doing the Democratic thing, which mostly consists of herding all of the cats into a circle and giving them guns to take shots at each other [1]. At one point in late January, the chances of any sort of HCR passing were very close to zero (Intrade was giving it around 22%).

Happy Festivus!

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:37:16 +0000

Just a reminder of that it’s the 23rd. Bring on the feast and the airing of grievances! After dinner, all of the pets in the house will have to try to pin me in the feats of strength :-)

Boycott!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:37:04 +0000

I’m officially boycotting any retailer using “ Santa Baby” in their commercials. Yeah, it’s an empty threat since I wasn’t going to the mall anyway, but there you are. Now to get the idiotic song out of my head. Maybe the Mighty Mighty Bosstones? Failing that, a power drill may be my best bet.

The lonely possum sketch

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:13:05 +0000

If only we could get Carol Burnett to highlight the plight of the lonely possums on the muppet show. Of course, she would get all interupted by Gonzo’s dance marathon, but hey, rehabbers will take what they can get.

K got in a solitary young opossum last night. Sad little girl (the possum, not K… at least to my knowledge). Dehydrated (definitely the possum) and underweight (both actually!). Hopefully she’ll make it (both again):

Annotate Flickr

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:45:15 +0000

A while back, Luis Villa asked about a script to add creative commons licensing information to an image. My first thought was to just use ImageMagick. That works pretty well, but assumes a command line, image magick, etc. My next thought was a piece of javascript that you could include on a webpage. The javascript would scan all tags and for each that were of the class “cc-license”, it would grab the “license” and “attrib” attributes. The img would be replaced with a canvas that had a transparent license image and the attribution in the corner. That worked pretty well, but again, didn’t really change the image, so if you were loading it into a presentation, etc., you were out of luck.

Projects

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:31:01 +0000

We are all socialists now

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:18:30 +0000

Welcome to the new socialist state… comrade.

From Propublica, an inflation adjusted comparison of bailouts.

Happy birthday to the U.S. Constitution

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:22:19 +0000

Oh, on an entirely unrelated note, the U.S. Constitution was signed 221 years ago today – happy birthday! Okay, it wasn’t ratified for a couple of years after that, but still…

If you’ve got some time, take a read. It’s still the most impressive government document I’ve ever read.

A few years ago, I wanted to start a project that took the individual clauses of the constitution and traced the arguments for and against them back to the original sources or at least to the debates between the signing and ratification. The Federalist Papers, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison and many of the documents collected in the two volume Library of America’s Debate on the Consitution would have featured prominantly. Never did have the time to kick that off.

Baton Rouge - good news, bad news

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:58:30 +0000

So, one more update on Gustav in Baton Rouge and then I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled odd musings, rants and wildlife pictures.

First, the good news – I got a text message from my mother last week. They got power back! Only 10 days without power. I suppose that’s not too bad. No word from K’s parents, but they had moved into K’s sister’s condo that did have power, so I’m guessing they’re still there.

Baton Rouge . . . disaster area

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:58:42 +0000

I spoke to my mom for a little while this evening and got an update on where things stand in Baton Rouge or at least in her corner of it. A summery for those of you interested in Baton Rouge:

The news keeps talking about how mild things were in New Orleans, but the only time you hear about Baton Rouge is in passing. For example, I’ve heard at least two NO evacuees mention that things are better in NO than in the shelters in BR. That is, in part, what’s driving the exodus back south.
While the winds weren’t as bad in BR as they were in NO, they were (near) record winds for the city. BR has more trees and they haven’t experienced winds like this, so there were a lot of trees that fell down.
The local power company is estimating six to eight weeks before they get power to everywhere in the city. There are major grids in the city that don’t have power and then once those major sections are restored, they will still have to restore to the local homes/offices.
My parents did find a plumber to get the water line fixed. They are on the waiting list for a tree guy that can cut up a tree trunk as large as the one that fell in their yard (3′?) – it’s not really a do it yourself job.
Almost every yard in my parents’ neighbourhood has a tree down.
Most of the houses have experienced some damage.
Probably 20% of the houses have trees through the roofs.
There are a large number of cars that were struck by falling trees.
Many of the power poles on the main road outside of the neighbourhood are down. In the neighbourhood, there are few intact sections of power line more than 3 to 4 houses long. Entergy will probably have to replace many poles and string a lot of new line.
There is a curfew in effect. The National Guard did fire shots (in the air?) when some people tried to break into a FEMA trailer full of tarps.
Good news: there is fuel in many gas stations. Bad news: there’s no power to pump it with. Stations with fuel and power have long lines, in some cases backing up down the road.
My parents underestimated the amount of gasoline their generator requires (about 5 gallons a day) and are trying to find more 5 gallon cans.
It’s still raining and there’s little power, so some underpasses are flooding.
The humidity is very high. To the point where my parents’ wood floors are damp and are occasionally collecting puddles. Oh, and the mosquitoes are breeding, so the health authorities are warning people about West Nile.
There aren’t too many stores open, those that are open can’t accept credit cards (no phone lines) and so are requiring cash.

Taken as a whole, it reminds you of a post-apocalyptic distopian movie with people stocking up on water, fuel, food, guns, cash and gold. Maybe Mad Max, The Stand or The Postman. I suppose a comparison to Water World would be in poor taste…

notes from a Cramer mini-reunion

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:50:00 +0000

Just got back from a mini-reunion of Cramers in Tennessee. This was all of my uncles and cousins on my father’s side with the exception of my sister who has a three-week old baby at home. To answer the obvious question, no. No one lives in Tennessee, it’s just a more or less central place. We came in from Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Washington D.C. and New Jersey.

A few notes:

Oil makes you stupid. . . news at 11

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:05:16 +0000

I knew that there were a lot of chemicals that when ingested could make you stupid. Drugs, sure. Lead and mercury, definitely. But apparently even thinking about oil makes people stupid. Consider the following:

For weeks, republicans have been pushing the idea that either a) the Cubans are drilling in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida; or b) that the Chinese are drilling for oil in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida. The only problem of course is that this is demonstrably false.

Musical fortune telling

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:59:49 +0000

From etselec and because it amused me, my fortune as told by a random selection of my music with interpretive accompaniment by yours truly:

1. How does the world see me? Lightnin’ Hopkins – No Education

Ouch. Apparently the world sees me as an academic poseur. I guess I can live with that, but it’s a bit rough to see.

2. Will I have a happy life? R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy

minor updates

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:56:26 +0000

Just a couple of minor updates:

my keyboard came in yesterday and it’s everything that I hoped it would be. I feel sorry for the folk in my office suite. It is a bit loud
I cropped some of the photos using the original sized images, so all that’s left are captions and fixing the lens smudge

Yellowstone 3

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:54 +0000

Yellowstone 2

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:45 +0000

Yellowstone 1

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:36 +0000

Photography

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:24 +0000

I don't know why I do it

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:05:55 +0000

I listened to the president’s speech tonight on the radio and then on the television when I got home. I don’t know why I do it. Listening to the president makes my ears want to explode, my eyes want to pop out of my head and my foot want to go through the television.

As near as I can tell, the “new way forward is essentially what we claim we’ve been trying to do all along. The only difference seems to be that this time we’ll succeed [insert eye roll here]. Why? Not because we’re doing anything different, only because we’ll be sending 20,000 more targets, er troops, to the region. Of course, 20,000 troops is no where near enough to help – we would need ten to twenty times that number. 20,000 is just enough to claim we’re trying something new, but likely not enough to actually accomplish anything.

and speaking of population statistics

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:00:25 +0000

last week saw the 300 millionth American. I happened to be online about that time and saw the U.S. census office’s population clock hit 3×10^8:

I don’t have too much to say about hitting 300 million people. It seems like something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, population growth helps increase the level productivity in the economy. On the other hand, it already seems like we’ve got too many people, particularly at the U.S. level of per capita consumption.

a letter from Iraq

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:49:38 +0000

Time Magazine publishes a letter from a Marine officer in Iraq – read it.

somehow i'm not surprised...

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:53:29 +0000

So, a “Which Tarot card are you quiz isn’t my usual thing. I blame labrownThe magician You scored 59 change, 74 wellbeing, 71 wisdom, and 87 truthThe magician represents the conscious mind. With focus on an idea or goal, the conscious mind sets into action these ideas and brings them forth to the material world. The magicians hands are stretched forth, one to the sky holding a wand, and the other pointing to the ground below. This is suggestive that as is “as above, so below. The table in front of him has all the tools to make this possible. The wand, cup, sword, and pentacle, which are representative of all the suits to the tarot cards. The mage has an undergarment of pure white, showing his pure wisdom and is held shut by the serpent around his waist. The outer garment is red, symbolic of desire and passion, which has no belt holding it shut so it can be removed if necessary. The flowers in the garden represent things as well. The red roses are symbolic of desires, and the white lilies represent pure thought, untainted by desire. This card is under the vibration of the number 1.

About Alkahest

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:44:21 +0000

Why Alkahest?

It’s mainly a joke, but on a couple of different levels. Alkahest is a mythical substance, thought by alchemists to be the universal solvent. The universal solvent was the one substance that could dissolve anything (which leads of course to the obvious question about what you keep it in). It was also thought to either be or be useful in making the philosopher’s stone. Calling a blog Alkahest implies at least that you are willing to take on a large number of different subjects as opposed to specializing. In modern chemistry, water is known as the universal solvent. Given the number of water/plumbing related problems (and therefore posts) I have, this amuses me. Finally, a blog really needs some title other than its URL.