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I still don't have internet at home (the man who built our house somehow managed to sneak past the inspector without installing a phone line, so we have to sue him to get the money to dig up a bunch of street to get one put in. Good times.) and T-Mobile doesn't work reliably inside at all (I'm very much looking forward to the CDMA Nexus One), so I've been having some serious contact issues.
We're still moving in. We built and filled another bookshelf yesterday, and we have 4 boxes of desks upstairs waiting to be put together. We're getting some thicker, derrière-friendly carpet installed next week along with a new cork kitchen floor, since I've decided that tile combines poorly with a propensity to put dishes near the edge of tables. I feel like the place is really coming together.
Back to work!
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Dec. 21st, 2029 @ 04:16 pm
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Who wants a Christmas card? Comments screened :-) |
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Do any of you have a Bay Area CPA you really like? My accountant is in PA and retired to new clients a few years ago, and I need to find someone local he can talk to before he leaves the business altogether.
I need someone who:
- Can handle complex files: my tax return is over an inch thick.
- Has experience with k-1s
- Is strongly anti-tax, ideally moreso than me :-)
If you know anyone, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks in advance for any recommendations!
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Anyone want 2 free tickets to see Rusted Root at the Fillmore tomorrow? It breaks my heart, but I don't want to go with a fever. E-mail or reply here.
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In a similar vein as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) patrissimo, I'm also getting rid of a ton of stuff in the process of consolidating 3 apartments and moving.
Less crappy stuff up for grabs (list will get much longer as I go through boxes):
- Large Escaflowne movie poster, basically pristine.
- Large Star Ocean 3 poster, less pristine.
- Some never-worn t-shirts from E3s of yore: FF11 XL (claimed), Quake 4 XL, a game I don't recognize XL, Google XXL.
- Books: Beginning Java (claimed), Software Requirements, a new java coffee table book (seriously)
- Yamaha keyboard (a slightly older version of this: http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-YPT210-Full-Sized-Keyboard-tones/dp/B000UUA9P6/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1251407618&sr=1-7). It works great, I love it to death, but we're buying an upright (100+ yr old!) piano for the new place and Chris has a nicer keyboard, so it's superfluous. Would like a bit of money for this one.
These and the rest of the random things we're getting rid of will be out at the Tortuga garage sale this Saturday afternoon. If you want anything on the list, claim it :)
Current Music: Serj Tankian -=- Beethoven's Cunt |
| » Airlines (This post may self-destruct) |
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Have any of you ever flown Sun Country air? Did their staff seemed happy? We just got 2 roundtrip tickets from SFO to MSP for ~$350, *total*. Southwest charges $200 at the cheapest for one person, one way. It doesn't seem like a sustainable price difference.
Aug. 17th, 2029 @ 11:47 am
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| » [Lazyweb] Question for the Engineers |
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I'm working on a project that probably needs a PID controller. I'm naïvely guessing that's not so bad, but I'm trying to figure out if that's really the best tool for the job, knowing nothing at all about control theory. Can anyone recommend a good reference? Code/math-focused (instead of mechanically focused) is a definite plus.
Thanks!
Jul. 27th, 2029 @ 05:07 pm
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| » [Local or Hardcore] Lacuna Coil |
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inferno0069 and I are thinking of checking out Lacuna Coil (Warning: Flash) at Slim's in SF (roughly at 11th and Folsom). We are wavering a little, and were wondering if there was any interest in LJ land for going as a group.
- Time: Monday, July 27th, doors @ 7, show @ 7:30(!)
- Place: Slim's (333 11th St., SF, CA, 94103)
- Bands: Kill Hannah, Seventh Void, Dommin, Lacuna Coil
- Tickets: Link
- After: Potentially some delicious Thai food at Lers Rose. They're my current favorite Thai place: open late, authentic, not bland, and reminiscent of Big Bowl.
Jul. 22nd, 2029 @ 04:03 pm
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| » Tequila Party! (From the Shamelessly Stolen LJ Post Department) |
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"From an email we (hopefully) sent to all those who already responded:
Survey says...
Party in Mountain View!
The party will be held at Tortuga, Mountain View, CA. Saturday 6/27, 7pm till whenever you're done with good booze and better company.
Bring some tequila, appetizers, and, most importantly, a discerning palate.
See you soon!
-- Chris (inferno0069) and Avani
In case anyone wants to come who didn't really want to commit when there wasn't a date, now's your chance!
Most of you know where Tortuga is and how to contact one of us, but if not please comment here. There's also a wiki page with tequilas (and potentially other stuff) that people will bring; I can IM or email you the address but I can't publicly post it here.
Previous posts are here and here. "
Jun. 24th, 2029 @ 11:34 pm
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| » [RLP] Is Science as Important as Football? |
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I find this article very insightful. He makes the case that as a culture we expect children to learn by doing in sports (which we understand), and yet are terrified of the smaller risks involved in hands-on science education (since we don't understand why chemicals go "Boom!", or even what that means).:
[...]
But no one who has heard an oxy-hydrogen soap bubble explode in a lecture hall can ever doubt the value of stoichiometric calculations. Do you believe that the Apollo moon rocket ran on diesel fuel, just like a truck? I can show you an experiment that will make you believe it could as easily have run on bacon.
Teachers should be able to do this kind of science, and many would love to, but cannot because of the fear of what would happen if there were ever an accident. A student suffering even a relatively minor injury from a dangerous chemical would be front page news anywhere in the U.S., even if the same student spending a week in the hospital due to a sports injury would go completely unnoticed (unless perhaps he's the star quarterback).
The science teacher would likely lose their job, while the coach would be offered condolences on the loss of their star player.
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=6721
Jun. 3rd, 2029 @ 04:34 pm
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| » Rambly Update |
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Apparently I only post these days when I have a lot of work to do. There are so many awesome adventures that I need to write up and haven't yet. We've tasted so many wines, gone hiking in beautiful places, gone on a long drive chasing the sunset and ended up on an elk preserve where the water looked frozen in place, watched some great (and some terrible) movies, seen Opeth, hung out with lots of very awesome people, and generally been having a great time. I also got in to my first systems conference as first author (MASCOTS), so I'm going to London for a week in September, which I'm pretty stoked about. In the process, I acquired an Erdös number of 3.
Those are all the times I don't think to post, though. Too much happening, making the rare moments I'm alone too precious to spend at a computer. Right now, I'm in finals crunch and feeling lonely, so I post to LJ :P I'm taking a break to go visit mtbg Saturday, but otherwise I'm stuck at my apartment until next Thursday when this is all turned in and I get my 3 whole days of summer vacation (that I need to spend doing the camera ready copy of my conference paper and taking my *1 week, 3 question* security final. The first question is "a) Outline the steps to create a web site that is completely untraceable to you by an omnipotent, suspicious adversary, b) Collect money off this site while maintaining anonymity, and Extra Credit: Frame someone else convincingly for your site.") before starting at Google on Monday, where I'm there for a week before heading to San Diego for another conference (USENIX).
So, there's an update for all ya'll. I'm going to go back to making pretty pictures to toss onto this poster.
May. 28th, 2029 @ 07:37 pm
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| » [Local] Tequila Party! |
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Chris and I are throwing a tequila-tasting party sometime in the next
few months and we're trying to gauge interest and pick a date.
The idea is to try some quality tequilas and share our
findings without anyone having to buy all the bottles themselves. We'll buy a few bottles off this funwiki list. If you find anything on there interesting (or have a favorite tequila outside that), please bring some to share! We'll also try to have some thematically appropriate appetizers on hand and are looking for more ideas there.
Party will likely be in El Cerrito and there is some crash space
available for South Bay folks.
Poll #1400089
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22Are you interested in this bold venture?
For more information, see:
http://inferno0069.livejournal.com/85769.html
May. 14th, 2029 @ 04:00 pm
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| » [Rant] Dirty Words |
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Yesterday's Supreme Court decision supporting the FCC ban on ``fleeting expletives'' seems unreal to me. I have trouble believing that 5 mature, blindingly intelligent adults really believe there exist magic words that zap away little pieces of children's brains and fill them with butter (it's surprisingly hard to think of something to put into kids brains that isn't delicious). Their argument is essentially "kids mimic what they hear, and so they'll be harmed by hearing bad words and saying them to each other". I will admit that every coarse English word I know I learned on the school bus, but I'll also point out that kids are just as excited to call each other 'boogers' as 'shitheads'. The sentiment doesn't go away if you change the words they say to words you were brainwashed into thinking are less dirty[*]. If you don't want your kid to be comparing items to excrement, you tell them what it means, and you discipline them if they continue using it. This protects children so much more than blanket regulations. For example, I'd much prefer my future children swear like sailors but never hear them say ``that's gay'' or even ``meh'' or ``I dunno''.
It's like a hard to believe science fiction society where you're allowed to talk about anything except exploding hippopotami, because the king's mother finds them gross and would rather everyone just talk about beheadings like good little children.
This is degenerating quickly. I may expand this into a real essay when I have time.
Apr. 28th, 2029 @ 01:08 pm
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| » OS X Happiness |
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My favorite thing in the world today is this command:
defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE
This simple little command turns this:
into this:
After learning this, I finally stopped swearing at the gods of bad design decisions and proceeded to happily download papers and save them to where I wanted in a single step, just as nature intended.
While I'm at it, here some of my other favorite OS X modifications. Most of them are just little settings tweaks:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
# Show hidden files
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png
# Screenshots to PNG
defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse TRUE
# Sloppy Focus in Terminal
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool TRUE
# Show POSIX path in title
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean TRUE; killall Dock
# Make Leopard dock non-hideous.
I also found this one today that sets your screensaver as your background. I tried it out, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like. For one, the clock stays sticky over all your windows, and the transparent menuar shows your old desktop. Still, it was kind of cute.:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/\
Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &
I suppose I should get back to real work now.
Apr. 22nd, 2029 @ 05:06 pm
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| » Rules |
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Avani's rules of life #1: There is very little wrong in life that a good, painful massage and facial can't cure.
Avani's rules of life #2: Reading research papers can be interesting, inspiring, even riveting. Reading research papers with a Baileys and coffee magnifies these effects.
To be continued...
Apr. 15th, 2029 @ 06:07 pm
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| » [Silly] Buns |
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This is just unfair. We've got countless Mexican grocers in the area, but somehow not a single Asian grocer of any stripe closer than Watsonville. I am craving steam buns so hard right now, and the local restaurant only has vegetarian, and I had them yesterday, and they're really not that good.
Mar. 26th, 2029 @ 05:42 pm
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| » A Place on the Internet |
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I'm in the process of moving my Speakeasy DSL to my new apartment. In doing so, I went over the other options, and realized that if I let go of my static IP (along with competent techs, network maps, etc.), I can save $60/month by going to AT&T.
As a poor college student who has the ability to go in to lab whenever there is an outage at home, this should be a no-brainer... yet, I feel pretty attached to having my own IP that I can know and trust to be there. I've used DynDNS in the past and have no real complaints with their service, but it's not quite enough for some reason.
Is this common? Am I just weird?
Mar. 24th, 2029 @ 05:36 pm
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| » Restaurant Recap: Chapeau! |
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Last night, Chris and I went with my sister A- to Chapeau! in the Outer Richmond. For a restaurant with this quality of ingredients, it was an amazing value (4 course menu for $45/person with wines starting at $15/bottle). The Yelp reviews imply that there may even be a special happy hour pricing. They are better than many places I've been to that have Michelin stars.
Also, they put out a hat with the check in it ^_^
( The food )
EDIT:
The biggest downside was that they were very slow. We got there for a 7:45 reservation and didn't make it out until after 10:30, which resulted in us being a half hour late to Watchmen. They are also a little on the loud side.
I'm certainly up for coming back here. It is great to be able to think of a place that serves foie gras and is still borderline affordable.
Mar. 9th, 2029 @ 12:19 pm
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| » Tortuga Party Time! |
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Saturday February 28 starting at 4pm:
Mountain View, CA (map)
Do you have a snazzy formal suit or dress that you'd love an excuse to wear? Do you need an excuse to buy one?
Now is your chance! Please come to our Tortuga Winter Formal and show off your best.
There will be:
- Drink Luge!
- Ice Slip-n-Slide!
- Frozen drinks!
- Hot drinks!
- Warm, fuzzy blankets to share with a friend!
- Rock Band!
Elegant attire admired but not required.
Link to the invite: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/partypage/de8b6e394bf2ebca
Feb. 3rd, 2029 @ 05:55 pm
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| » Music and Posting! |
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inferno0069 and I went to go see JoCo at Great American last Saturday. It was a fun show, even though I can't for the life of me get some of the songs out of my head. In particular,
The openers, Paul and Storm, were fantastic as always, including handing a thong to a little boy in the front row...
Also, this makes two entries in one day. Watch out, inferno0069!
Jan. 20th, 2029 @ 11:59 pm
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