iRobot is working on a proto-Rover. Still a bit jerky and small, but when this sucker bounces on your ass for trying to leave The Village, you won't be laughing.



And speaking of Rover. AMC has their "reinterpretation" of The Prisoner coming next month. They've got a 9 minute preview trailer that they showed at Comic Con on their web page. It looks interesting and may be good on it's own merits, but it looks like a completely different animal than the original. From the looks of the trailer the whole premise is different. Instead of trying to get information from Number 6, it looks like Number 2 is trying to convince him that there is nothing outside of The Village. The themes of identity and conformity do look intact though, but with more emphasis on the nature of reality. Of course this is all judging by the trailer. And you can always cut a trailer to give a very different impression.

Wired's military tech blog Danger Room has the best press release I've seen in some time. Company Denies its Robots Feed on the Dead.

It does seem that any time the idea of a robot powered by foraging for biomass is mentioned, fears that they'll rise up like carnivorous terminators seems to follow. Of course giving the thing a name with the acronym EATR, probably doesn't help. Of course we do know that robots think people taste like bacon so maybe there is cause to worry.

BBC has the best headline I've seen in some time. Stoned wallabies make crop circles.

I've always figured some kind of intoxicant was involved in crop circles. Even if you buy the alien explanation, those aliens are likely the extraterrestrial equivalent of drunken frat-boys doing doughnuts on your lawn. The comments on the article are pretty good so far too.

On the way back from DVC today I noticed a truck with a campaign sticker or sign on the back. Pretty common, except who the sticker was for. Dewey - Warren.

The truck looked old, but not quite THAT old. On the other hand at least they backed a winner.

I am of course referring to The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel.

This isn't exactly new but recently I've talked to several people who haven't read this brilliant article. It's a bit long, but you really do need to read it.

I should be in bed, but I didn't get up untill 5 so I should be ok for tomorrow. Besides, I have important news for you....
Anteaters are truly awesome. While screwing around the other day I found the Flicker page for TamanduaGirl. She's got a pair of anteaters (Tamanduas) as pets. I didn't know anteaters had this much personality, I just new they looked neat. Now again I'm a bit bummed that I'm probably going to UC Davis which has a lame mascot (a horse) instead of UC Irvine which has an anteater for a mascot. But for my major it's mostly going to be either Davis or Cal Poly which also has a lame horse for a mascot. Why don't more colleges understand the importance of having a cool mascot instead of something lame like a horse or bear? Anteaters, geoducks and banana slugs are much better choices.

Anteater with Easy Cheese

Anteater in dryer

Isn't that so much cooler than a horse?

I once again have fully functional intertubes.

Getting a router and using NAT solved the my problem, or works around it to be more precise. I also had to redo my Ethernet jack, but that wasn't the full original problem, because plugging in with a different cable had the same problem previously. The Comcastards weren't very helpful, but I'm up so things are all right.

I wasn't really planning on spending the entire day at DVC, 7.5 hours in the math lab (and 2 hours of assorted breaks and other running around*) seems a bit excessive. Especially considering it's just a quiz tomorrow not a full test. Well at least it's less work to prepare for next Wednesday's test. And it's not like I'd really have used that time for anything worthwhile anyway. But still, getting home from school a half hour before my self imposed bedtime is silly.

*spent at least a half hour trying to find a damn phone, it looks like most of them were simply yanked (one still had a dangling bundle of wires). I finally found a single phone off by the library so I could tell my mom to not freak out, I haven't been eaten by a grue (just partial derivatives).

Whining is what LJ is for isn't it? Well I've still got plenty of things to whine about but I'll focus on one. My networking trouble. My net connection is still buggered, if slightly less so then it was. I can actually get to LJ and Wikipedia now, and can also get to my friends page, but posting comments or even reading some are still not possible on my computer (I'm using a different one to post this obviously). Downloads and streaming video and such occasionally work, but not often.

It's really pissing me off, everything I've tried hasn't worked, and I've tried a lot. Tried a different NIC, and it won't get an IP (we possibly reached our IP limit and it won't release IPs from hardware that's no longer in use). Tried manually entering in a known good IP, subnet mask, gateway, ect. and it won't work at all, I think they may be MAC address locked, or simply DHCP is required. Tried different cables, same problem (it's not the cables), tried plugging directly into the cable modem, no change. Tried forcing a different IP and even subnet, no change (it's not on a damaged subnet). Tried a fresh Windows install on a different hard drive and got the same issues so it's not a software corruption. Tried my computer on a different connection and it works fine (even the new NIC) so it's not a hardware problem. Tried spoofing the MAC address from the old motherboard to get past possible MAC address locking and there is no change.

All my theories about what it could be keep getting knocked down, but I'm almost certain that whatever the problem is, it's not on my end, it's Comcast. Of course Comcast has been no help. I should probably call them again, but I don't see what they can do, they just want to reboot cable modems and make sure DHCP is on. They only understand work fully/doesn't work at all type of problems "If you can get to web pages, your connection must be working fine." Maybe I should see if they can replace the cable modem, I have no evidence of it not working, but it's at least something more to try.

I completed the upgrades on my computer and things are truly groovy, with one exception. I'm having network trouble. Many web pages work fine, but certain other ones (like Livejournal) I can't get to at all and trying to download anything doesn't work. I can't even ping the web sites I can get to. At first I thought it was Comcast being Comcastic as it tends to do, but the other computers in the house are fine (that's how I'm posting this) but mine is still acting odd. So I figure it must be something with the onboard ethernet controller on the new motherboard. I tried updating the drivers but same results. Do any of you have a spare PCI NIC that I could borrow to test if it is indeed the built in controller?

Did a 6 hour session in the math lab (with a one hour break) today. I think I'm mostly ready for the test, (I don't think I can do anymore without my brains leaking out my ears) but I thought I was last time too.

So unsurprisingly I've been thinking about DVC.

We've got a pretty big number of international students at DVC which is pretty neat. I'm not entirely sure why they come to DVC of all places, I always thought that international students came for the big Universities, but I guess they probably go here for the same reasons the locals do. It's a lot cheaper and you have a good chance of transferring somewhere to the biggies later.

When people are having conversations in the math lab, being in a foreign language actually makes it a bit less distracting for me, another advantage of having all the international students.

Campus wildlife is nice to have. Watching them can help relieve the brain liquefaction. DVC doesn't have quite the squirrel concentration as some of the great schools but we do have some cool birds. There must be a metric assload of hummingbirds (and it takes a lot of them to load an ass), I don't see them too often (hard to see something that small and fast) but hear them all the time. And while the ducks in the pond are kind of cool, I love watching the pair of cormorants (I'm pretty sure thats what they are) that have been hanging around lately as they swim back and forth diving for fish. And then there is the "whatever those are" that are always perched in a particular tree down there. Maybe some kind of small heron, hard to tell from underneath.

And while it's not DVC, I stopped by the new location for Black Diamond games on my way home. Very nice. Much much larger than that postage stamp sized place they used to be. It seemed busy too, I hope it stays that way. Always support your FLGS.

Spent a bit more money than I'm totally comfortable with today (which is to say I spent money today). I'm upgrading my computer. I didn't expect to, but I've been wanting to for a while now. When I got back from school Joey showed me todays Fry's add where they had a nice deal on a CPU motherboard combo and ram to go with it. Much more affordable than I suspected so now I'm going up to a Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with 2GB of PC6400 RAM from my Athlon XP 3000+ with 1GB of RAM (PC2700?). I'm getting a free video card from Joey as a late birthday gift, but It won't be here till Thursday. So until then I will only be able to waste time at my current speed.

On a completely different topic, despite what the Military channel documentary said, I don't think the F-104 Starfighter was designed to be a highly maneuverable dogfighter. With those stubby wings it turns like a bus, a really really fast bus, or to quote one of it's nicknames a "Missile with a man in it." They also neglected to mention the huge accident rate in Luftwaffe service.

I guess that error is on a similar scale to when I caught James Burke on Connections (great show, don't know how this one slipped past him) claimed that the arquebus and musket fired a one and two pound ball respectively. That's a small artillery piece or punt gun (same thing) not a shoulder arm.

You know those Tow Trucks with the big cross bar yoke on the back? Every time I see one of those I picture some post apocalyptic marauder tribe crucifying someone on the yoke and hauling the body around "This is what happens when you cross Lord Humungus!" I suspect I'm the only one who thinks about this.

I got a penis enlargement spam with the title "Now you're playing with power!" So all this time the NES could have given me a huge penis and I just used it to play video games? Ahh, missed opportunities. So maybe THAT's what the Power Glove was for, it sucked as a controller.

Sleep now.

I've got a new trinket on my computer desk to go with things like my dime planchet, bismuth crystal and stuffed Cthulhu (both the small Toy Vault version and one from Chaosium). My mom found a fired bullet in the street right behind where she parked her car. I've got some pictures but they're all about half a Meg each and I don't have anything to shrink them with (and I'm too lazy to get one).

So I'll just describe it, it's about 11mm in diameter at the base, 15mm long to the topmost part of the tip remaining, the tip is crushed at a roughly 45 degree angle (it must have hit at an angle) and there are eight shallow grooves around the base (probably marks from the rifling). I unfortunately don't have anything to weigh it with. I'm thinking it's probably a round nosed .45acp FMJ. Sound about right? (I'm looking at you firestrike). If anyone wants the pictures I can email them to you if you want 2.5MB of bullet pictures.

How it got there is probably the more important part. I looked around on the street to see if there are any more or if there is any brass, and found nothing. Based on the lack of the casing, the fact nobody heard a gunshot and the angle it appears to have impacted the street at, I suspect it was fired into the air a few blocks away and came down in the street. So the question is, who's the jackass firing in a residential area?

I'm not going to worry unless we find more, but at least I've got a new souvenir.

As I just posted in a comment elsewhere, it doesn't look like the proposed party this Saturday is happening. I started planning too late and most people already had other things going on that would make it hard to get to the party if not completely rule it out. So no party Saturday unless something odd happens.

As an alternate birthdayish type thing, They Might be Giants are playing at the Fillmore on the 30th. If anyone wants to take me as a late birthday gift/celebration, I certainly wouldn't mind. Otherwise you can eat cheese and think weaselish thoughts in my honor today.

Here's a solution to violence in the Middle East, PORN!

The thought of Weapons of Ass Destruction bridging the cultural divide brings a smile to my face. Of course I think porn is inherently funny.

It's certainly a better idea than the suggestion I saw a while back to go to terrorist websites and try to convince them that terrorism is bad. Because we all know how effective arguing on the internet is in changing people's minds.

I'm turning 29 on Thursday the 6th, and I figured I should have some kind of party, I haven't had any kind of celebration for years. I'm thinking about a barbecue up at Black Diamond Mines on Saturday the 8th, but nothing is really concrete. So who would be interested? Would a different day or place be better? I know my readership is currently all the way up to 3 people so any help in spreading the word would be appreciated. If I know someone and they don't hate my guts then they're invited, feel free to bring other people too, but it would be best to let me know before hand.

All of this is tentative until I get more feedback, I'll announce when plans are finalized.

On the way back from Davis today I saw a car with plates that read PV=NRT. To whoever owns that car, I salute your geekyness!

Both today and yesterday my drive to DVC took me about half an hour door to door, during prime commute time. I was expecting much worse. It used to take me 30-45 minutes just to get to Pittsburg BART back when I was commuting to San Francisco, and at least an hour to get to Martinez when I was working there. The worst bit was always from here to right around Pittsburg BART. It's now taking like 5-10 minutes. During rush hour. Highway 4 is a better than it used to be. There was some work done, but I wonder how much of the travel time improvement is due to that as opposed to the end of the Dot Com bubble.

Coming back seems to be more bottlenecked then mornings. I'm not complaining. But it's weird.

Now hopefully I'll have my car back soon so I don't have to drive my dads car with it's shitty AC.

Well, I finally broke down and got a Live Journal account. I resisted for quite some time because of all the silly LJ drama, the fact that I don't have much to say all that ofter ("Well today I read some political blogs and played video games." doesn't make for exciting reading) and because I don't have too much of a social life. I do have a few people I'd like to stay in contact with though, and would like to see them more often (that would be you if your reading this). With the current Big Change (TM) going on, it would be way to easy to just fall out of view.

So here I am. Now watch this space for exciting developments and profound thoughts (you might be waiting a while though).