Mon Feb 04 07:47:31 PST speed versus throughput:

It occurred to me yesterday that while elevators have higher speed, escalators definitely have a higher throughput. In other words, if you were first in line, the elevator would get you to the ground faster -- but if you were last in line, the escalator would get you to the ground faster.

Imagine a 5 story building and you're on the top floor. There's one standard elevator that holds say, 15 people max and one standard escalator (running all the way to the ground floor). The escalator can hold at least 15 people at a time, probably way more.

You want to get to the ground floor. Assuming there are two even lines for each conveyance and people never change lines, which line would you rather be in?

Wed Apr 23 22:12:22 Piled Higher and Deeper:

So, I've decided to stay on at UCLA and get a PhD.

Sat Apr 26 11:43:58 today's soundtrack:

So, I'd say 3/5 days I wake up with a song already in my head... I'm not sure where they come from -- maybe they're the song that was playing during my dream, or maybe they are *like* dreams -- I have this idea that if you "had" one of *my* dreams, that it would be something completely different to you, since our brains are different. I have no idea if that idea is scientifically sound or not. So I'm not sure if I actually had this song in my head while I slept, or if that's just the song I come up with when I try to make sense of the random music in my head. Anyway, today's soundtrack is "I'm still alive", by Pearl Jam.

Sat May 10 12:53:49 song archetypes: the list song:

I often think about different kinds of song archetypes -- songs that either in form or content, get written and rewritten constantly. One of these days, I want to do an album of all song archetypes... I suppose one approach would be to make you try to figure out what archetype it is, and the other approach would be to make it incredibly obvious... I'm not sure which strategy I'll take on this nebulous idea (file it under "probably won't ever happen").

Anyway, one archetype that, as a kid, I thought was absolutely hilarious and clever, was what I called the "list song", which basically just begged you to memorize it. Notable list songs: We Didn't Start the Fire, and It's the End of the World As We Know It. I think that American Pie is also one part list song -- it's also one part "mysterious lyrics" song, which is a different archetype I'll talk about some other time.

All three of those also have the distinction of being list songs about historical events... but I'm sure there are lots of these songs out there.

Stay tuned for more song archetypes.

Sun May 18 21:22:55 song archetypes: folk hero ballads:

These songs are usually about a famous folk hero -- some are more legendary and some are more factual than others. Classic examples include John Henry and Jesse James.

John Henry was, of course, the man who beat that steel driving machine but died as a result. Jesse James was the outlaw with a heart of [gold|silver|tin], often touted for his faith or lambasted for his theft of gold from old people. Few people know that Jesse was a secessionist who targeted Northerners that either served in or who he thought profited as a result of the war. On the balance, most songs treat James as a hero.

Personally, I want to write a song about Jesse James and John Henry meeting in heaven and fighting each other up and down the hills of Zion for a thousand years before settling their grudges. Seriously, don't steal that idea.

Update: Steal that idea all you want -- folk songs are all about stealing from each other.

Mon Jun 09 10:01:14 PST epic "skunkworks" story about Apple's Graphing Calculator:

Somehow, I've never read this great story before.

Thu Sep 25 12:34:35 flynn's arcade -- akasha restaurant in culver city:

I'm posting this here so I won't have to look so far the next time I want it:

One of the locations in the movie TRON is Flynn's arcade -- the building is the historic Hull Building at the corner of Washington and Watseka in Culver City, CA (not in Venice). It is currently a nice restaurant by the name Akasha. I found out about this watching the Food Network one night; there was a show about the restaurant, and I kept thinking... this is Flynn's arcade, isn't it? And so it was.

I'd like to go there some time, but I had a hard time finding the exact street location and then what the name of the restaurant was. But now, hopefully this information will make it into the Googlesphere so anyone else who wants to go to the restaurant in Flynn's arcade won't have such a hard time finding it.

Sun Sep 28 16:19:57 PST vermicomposting:

I like to grow plants, and I like to recycle. It only makes sense then that I would want to start composting. Unfortunately, we live in a small apartment with a small outdoor porch. Not enough room to do traditional composting, not to mention the smell. Enter vermicomposting, in other words composting with worms.

Composting with worms is great because it is fast, low odor, easy, doesn't take a lot of effort, and doesn't take a lot of room. You'll be amazed at how fast and how much those worms can eat.

There is a lot of information online about vermicomposting, where to get red wigglers, and more. I'm not going to try and recreate that information here (oops, I guess I did, sort of). What I do want to talk about is my method, which is small, cheap, easy, effective, relatively odor free, and low effort. I have my worms set up year round in the shade of our porch (we live in LA so it never freezes here), but you could do this in your basement, or whatever you like.

The simplest vermicomposting setup is a box with drainage (to catch the runoff that seeps out the bottom). Basically, you put your garden greens, veggie cuttings, grass, etc. and safe paper or cardboard into the tub. The worms will eat it and poop it out as very nice fertilizing dirt. As they eat what you put in, you get dirt back and more room for more input. (As mentioned above, you will sometimes get brown liquid out the bottom which, while smelly if disturbed, is also incredible fertilizer in its own right.)

You have to make sure that the worms get enough food and "bedding", which is things like cardboard, dried leaves, etc. In composting parlance they call it "green" (fresh material) and "brown" (things like newsprint or egg cartons). Think of it this way -- if it was all lettuce and tomato stems, it would get pretty rotten and mushy. The dried "brown" stuff keeps things balanced. If it seems too soupy, add more brown. If it seems to dry, add more greens or some water. No big deal.

The hardest part about worm composting is separating the good fertilizer from the worms and uneaten stuff -- the worms do all the work but they don't put it in bags for you. They will, however, move toward food and away from thoroughly digested material. Leveraging this principle, there are lot of kits and contraptions that make it easier, and you can fish around in a single tub although it's kind of a hassle. Many of the kits have drawers or separate partitions for the worms -- and that's what inspired my system.

I needed this to fit on my porch, so I went with a smaller size -- you can try adjusting the dimensions.

What you'll need: 4 12"x18" rubbermaid tubs and 2 lids (total) for the tubs. Some dirt, garden waste, and "brown" material for starters. You will also probably want to order some crushed lime (pulverized sea shells) online, and finally, enough fabric and a long (e.g. 30") zipper for a giant bag to put the whole thing into. Oh yeah, and some worms -- you can order these online too, or get some from a friend. Regular earthworms are not what you want -- you want "red wigglers".

(Note: red wigglers are considered invasive species in some areas because they can eat the leaf "litter" on forest floors which is needed for some other species. PLEASE be smart about your use of red wigglers.)

The basic idea is simple: The worms leave "finished" areas and move towards new food. So we're going to fill a tub, stack a new one, and keep going until the 4th tub is full. By then, the bottom tub will be "finished" and most of the worms will move up to the 2nd to the bottom tub or higher. Then all you have to do is harvest your manure and use the newly emptied tub for your new top tub.

See my photos which should help answer any questions you might have.

First of all, drill big holes all over the bottoms of all four tubs. I used a large 1/2 inch drill bit, but you can use whatever your largest bit is. You don't want to make the tub unstable, but you want it to have plenty of holes for the worms to migrate through. Then, take a smaller bit and drill many small "air holes" in ONE of the lids you bought and in the sides of the tubs. (See pictures).

Now, take the other (undrilled) lid and set it on the ground, upside down. Take and put your first bin on top of this lid, open side up. (This lid will serve as the catch tray for any juice (we call it "worm tea" in the business). Be forewarned that this does not actually hold that much juice -- if you're doing this in your house, you probably want a larger catch tray.

Put all your worms and food, etc in this bin, and put the lid you drilled all the holes in on top of this bin as its lid (this won't keep bugs out, but it may keep critters out). Fill this tub up until it is jam packed full (this takes the two of us about a month or so -- see below for how we fill it). When the first tub is full, we're going to add a second story to your worm tower. Take the lid off, take a second tub and set that tub on top of the full tub, and put the lid on. Do this until you've filled all four tubs.

While it might take your worms a little while to reproduce and catch up with all the food you're providing, you can periodically check on your lower tubs and see how they're progressing. Resist the urge to mess with the contents of those tubs by stirring them or adding more stuff to them. Just keep an eye on them and see that they're still moist and still getting eaten. Also, don't worry that the tubs will settle -- this only makes sense as the food is broken down that a tub that was once full to the brim is only half full of manure. The idea here is that it's no fuss, no muss. Don't muss with it.

Eventually, your 4th tub will be full, and you'll need a new tub to put on top. Here's the cool part. We're going to empty the bottom tub, and put it on top! Voila! So, at this point, you can stir the tub a little and see if it looks like it's pretty well used up. If it's NOT, give the worms a few more weeks to work and let them catch up. I'm at the point with my system that by the time I get to the top of my 4th tub my bottom tub is ready. You could also add a 5th tub, I suppose. Whatever works for you.

Here's how you get the manure out -- and this is the most time intensive job.

The worms hate light, so they will dive when exposed to it. Take the bottom tub and set it out in the light. The worms will dive in a few minutes, and you can scrape off the top layer of dirt until you start seeing worms. Then, go have a cup of coffee, and come back in 10 minutes and scrape the next layer off. Eventually, you'll get down to mostly worms (or just be ready to quit). You can dump that stuff in the top tray, or just add your new food to whatever's left over. To be honest, this is kind of a lazy job you do while doing something else. A watched worm never dives, so don't expect to just sit and do this in one quick session.

That said, you may find so few worms in the bottom tray that you're happy to just dump it all out. Root around in there first and see. You'll also find small little translucent, leathery sacks in there (about the size of a styrofoam grain) -- these are worm "casings" -- little egg sacks. You really can't worry about sifting them out if you're going for my "no fuss, no muss" strategy, so don't. My other advice is, don't get attached to the worms. Some will die, some with get thrown out. You'll spend a lot more time if you agonize over the worms, and it really doesn't matter: losing a few won't hurt your bins, and if they make it into your plants, who cares? They won't hurt your plants.

What's with the fabric and zipper? Well, on my porch in Los Angeles, if I don't do something, my worm bin gets swarmed by fruit flies, and this cuts down on the enjoyment factor a whole ton. So I made a giant "pillowcase" with a zipper that I zip the whole thing up into. Voila! No fruit flies! You don't need a pattern to do this -- just make a big bag. It doesn't have to look pretty or even be particularly straight. I made mine in about 15 minutes. (See photos.)

You may find other "helpers" in the bin working on the material. I have a lot of little mites -- the vast majority of which are not worth worrying about. Pill bugs might also find their way inside (these are often called potato bugs because they look like little gray potatoes), and they are also friendly. The grossest thing I've seen have been soldier fly maggots and although they are nasty looking they are also friendly and won't hurt your worms. Soldier flies are big and ugly, but they do not bite or otherwise affect humans. Using the big cloth bag keeps out bigger pests like pillbugs and soldier flies.

A few final tips:

Buy some crushed seashells. The acid environment of the breakdown is part of what makes it smell bad. So when I add new food, I almost invariably shake the white lime all over the new food and this drastically cuts down on smell. You can also use BBQ ashes for this purpose. Lime is cheap and can be found online.

You can also used crushed eggshells -- another great resource to reuse rather than throw away. You'll probably want to grind them in a blender, food process, or mortar and pestle, since the worms don't really "eat" the eggshells.

Get a bin to store your food in. It's a waste to feed them every time you have a tomato stem. I have a (roughly) half gallon plastic container with a snap-top lid (no smell!) that we keep under the sink. I feed the worms once its full. It gets a little juicy in there, but that's ok -- a little breakdown before feeding just speeds the process along.

There are things you DON'T want to feed the worms. First, stick to veggies and "brown" material. Don't put meat, dog poop, oils, etc. In short, don't put anything in there that could rot and get rancid. Secondly, there are some things they don't really like, such as orange peels. Banana peels are supposed to be very bad because of the pesticides. Onions and broccoli are somewhere in the middle. Basically, you'll figure out what they like and don't like. But citrus peels and bananas are a nono.

Don't add plants with seeds you don't like. For example, if you cut down grass that's gone to seed and feed it to your worms, they will not eat all the seeds, and so you might inadvertently be seeding your plants with your compost. We feed almost exclusively garden waste, so I don't mind the few volunteer plants I get like green peppers and tomatoes, but maybe you do. Also, don't feed the worms soil or plants with pests like scale or mold. The worms will not combat the pest and so by using the compost you may inadvertently be innoculating your other plants.

There are things they LOVE. For example, our coffee grounds AND filters (they're "brown" material whether they're bleached or not) go in every day. I also put our napkins and paper towels in the tub (if they don't have formula 409 on them or whatever), so that by the time I feed them, I'm already adding "green" and "brown" at the same time. I don't even shred up the napkins. It takes too long and the worms don't seem to mind.

There are other kinds of "brown" you can put in -- newsprint, egg cartons, paper towels, napkins, etc. It matters a little less if you're not eating anything from the garden, but newsprint and egg cartons are OK because they have stricter controls on safety (newspapers use non-toxic soy inks, for example). Of course, things like paper towels and napkins have to be safe for you to wipe your face on, so those are OK.

Don't use glossy or office paper. You may find that they don't like certain kinds of leaves (mine don't like lime tree leaves). They also don't eat wood -- so don't put in twigs, etc -- they won't eat them. That said, adding some sawdust to the mix would be good for the soil you get out.

Of course, the smaller the size of the food particles, the faster the worms will eat it. Some people chop or blend up their stuff before adding it. This obviously uses MORE electricity, so it kind of defeats the purpose. I even did this for a while, but it honestly was more work and in the end I found having enough tubs gave the worms plenty of time to do their thing -- I didn't need to chop the food any more finely.

So, what do you do with the stuff once you get it out? Well, you can add it to soil as a fertilizer. I just put it on top and water over it. You can also dissolve it in your watering can -- the muddy brown water that comes out is a great organic fertilizer. You can mix it in with other soil, or throw it on your yard, give it to your neighbor, etc. I make more than I can use -- and you probably will too.

While you think about how to use your rich, black, fertilizer, just imagine to yourself this wonderful resource sitting in a toxic landfill for hundreds of years -- isn't this better!

If you have any questions, just search online or email me: pedro@tastytronic.net.

Mon Sep 29 13:27:31 PST solanaceae:

If I could be any family of flowering plants, I would want to be the nightshade family. It's the best!

Tue Sep 30 11:57:41 PST sarah palin interview:

It's been an interesting few weeks for American politics. I normally don't post about them, but I honestly feel like it is my patriotic duty to say something. I'm also going to say some things that might be challenging to some people. I'd like to encourage you to take 10 minutes of your day and read this post and then watch the accompanying video. Don't stop if it makes you uncomfortable.

In general, I hate it when people take cheap shots at politicians or parties they don't like on principle. When making a meaningful criticism, you need to say meaningful things, not just "XXXX sucks!". And there is a difference between meaningful, substantive criticism (which I think is essential to democracy and therefore patriotic) and personal attacks (which I think are cheap and pointless).

I would describe myself as an independent moderate. I like John McCain, and 8 years ago I was an ardent McCain supporter. I still wish he had won. But -- and please don't tune me out for saying this -- his pick of Sarah Palin is seriously questionable if not irresponsible.

That said, I don't mean anything personal against Sarah Palin. I'm not going to make arguments about her politics or personal beliefs as to why she shouldn't be VP. The primary, first issue with Palin is her qualifications and readiness for the job. Not because she is a first term governor and former mayor -- but her informedness and ability to meaningfully communicate about the issues is seriously lacking. A VP should be a good candidate right away -- not someone who needs to be programmed by the campaign in order to have meaningful things to say.

If you haven't seen her interviews with Katie Couric, you -- as an American voter -- really, really need to. There are several key issues in the interview that she fails to speak meaningfully on, and some parts where it's not even clear what she is saying or how it is directly relevant to the question.

John McCain has (according to the tables used for health insurance) a 1 in 5 (or greater) chance of dying in office strictly because of his age. Regardless of how much you like Sarah Palin, it is hard to see the interview and think that she is truly ready to step in and be sworn in as president at a moment's notice. Again, not because of any ideological reasons (although you may or may not like her ideology), but because she is simply not ready.

Please, forget all the SNL sketches and the vitriolic editorials, forget the bias of magazines and edited media. You have a rare opportunity to simply watch her responses to simple questions that, in my opinion, a VP should be able to answer.

Here's a link to the YouTube search terms "couric palin interview". This way, if the links change you can still find clips. Make sure you listen to her answers about three topics: 1., why the bailout shouldn't go to the middle class instead of the banks, 2., her foreign policy experience, and 3., McCain's track record of regulating the economy. Some videos are excerpts or have commentary, etc., I encourage you to find and watch the unedited interviews.

Update: See also her answers about the sources of media she reads and an example of a Supreme Court ruling she disagrees with (other than Roe v. Wade). Much has been made of this one in the media. It is simply factual that there are many Supreme Court rulings in the past that are questionable or at least that she could have been upset with, in particular the ruling regarding reparations from Exxon to Alaskan fisherman (one of whom is her husband). Other recent examples include the ruling on Eminent Domain from a few years ago, or historical cases like Dred Scott (slavery should remain legal) or Plessy v. Ferguson (justifying "separate but equal").

Palin did alright in the VP debate, but of course she was prepped for these issues. Furthermore, she often did not answer the questions, and in my opinion Gwen Ifill treated both candidates with a kid gloves. Unfortunately, I think that the Gwen Ifill moderator controversy was valid after all. I think she reasonably stands to gain financially from an Obama victory because of her book... but more importantly, we won't ever know if a different moderator whose impartiality was not in question would have tried to force either candidate to answer the questions.

Still, I think the Couric interviews are telling; anyone can prepare for a debate -- but candidates need to be informed about basic issues, political history, and should be able to defend their claims about past experience.

Fri Oct 03 12:04:58 call me old school:

I've been annoyed at the proliferation of iTunes-like music players and the dearth of old school Winamp/xmms-like players. I still listen to albums in the time honored fashion of selecting one and listening to it straight through. I also have many, many gigabytes of music, and importing them into my library never seems to go as smoothly as it should. Importing one album at a time seems like an insulting waste of time, since the whole point of these players is library management. Furthermore, I also have a lot of different music in different formats, like .mod, .spc, etc and those don't seem to be readily supported by rhythmbox, etc. so I can't listen to them anyway.

Adding insult to injury, xmms has disappeared from Ubuntu in favor of xmms2 which, while it has plugins for different formats, crashes when I try to play music! Thanks a lot, guys! I guys the "2" in xmms2 stands for "sucks".

Thankfully, I just discovered 'audacious' today -- which appears to be basically a workalike of xmms. (The apt data says it's a fork of 'beep' -- maybe that's a fork of xmms... I don't know, or care.) Anyway, Ubuntu has lots of plugins for it, including all my old music. So I'm back in business.

Mon Oct 06 09:50:26 PST get_pageblock_migrationtype:

Are you a kernel newbie like me? Have you been perusing kernel code and wondering what "migration type" is or whether it's important for you to understand? Here's a link.

Page migration is about moving pages around to alleviate differences in RAM in access times. How can acccess times be different? Well, in traditional systems, they're not, because the system has only one bank of RAM, and the time to access it is always the same.

However, some new systems are NUMA systems. NUMA stands for Non Uniform Memory Access and describes a system where the memory access times are not uniform from processor to processor. For example, my dual Opteron board has two banks of RAM, one for each processor. The bank for CPU0 can hold 4G, but the bank for CPU1 can only hold 2G. As you might imagine, there are times when CPU1 needs more than 2G of RAM, so it can "borrow" from CPU0 -- but of course, memory access to the other bank will take longer than memory access to its own, local bank, so sometimes we'd like to "migrate" the data from one memory bank to another.

You can imagine how this kind of thing could get very complicated in a large multi-system cluster or in future "1000s of cores" designs.

Thu Oct 09 14:28:25 PST 750,000 jobs and 250 billion dollars? :

I hate to parrot Slashdot, but this article from Ars Technica discusses the sources and legitimacy of the common figures used to support the further restriction and enforcement of copyright and other IP protections. It's a really good read.

In essence, the figures of 750,000 jobs and 250 billion dollars "lost to piracy" have been quoted and re-quoted for years in lobbying efforts, testimony, articles, and more in an effort to get tougher IP laws. Unfortunately, no one ever followed the breadcrumb trail back to the original source of the figures or did any simple reality testing of them until now... and the numbers don't really hold up to scrutiny. Do you like your government making laws based on flimsy statistics? I don't.

Thu Oct 09 17:18:06 PST i never should have written all those tank programs, or: life imitates art:

This is an awesome story about some kids who wrote a "light cycles" program for an Apple IIgs. All was going well until the computer players decided to escape the game grid into system memory... (from clickolinko)

Fri Oct 17 07:56:54 PST masterpiece security theatre:

This has been all over the Internet, but here's a great article about why the TSA screening, etc. is just designed to make you feel better and doesn't actually stop smart terrorists.

Thu Oct 23 09:43:40 PST weird moments in the grocery store:

So, I was at Ralph's the other day, and what came over the PA but the love theme from Bladerunner! That reminds me of the time that Mel, my late night cashier at Jewel in Chicago, said that sometimes in the middle of the night they play weird stuff like classical music and whatever because they think nobody's listening.

Wed Nov 19 07:21:24 PST en?tymology -- my two favorite things:

I love both etymology and entymology.

Yesterday, I found this on the wall near our shower. It looked at first like a crack in the tile, or a dusty drip of caulking or spackle, which are numerous in our bathroom. But I took a closer look, and there was a little Alice In Wonderland-esque worm poking its head out of both ends of the case, which looked like a dirty pumpkin seed. Unbelievable! Turns out it is the larvae of a Case Making (or alternatively Bearing) Clothes Moth. I don't like the fact that we have clothing moths, but that thing was neat, if a little freaky.

Thu Dec 18 22:03:28 PST the golden age of the celestial atlas:

Very cool.

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