Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!.
When are people (and by people I mean the Boston police) going to learn that lights do not imply bomb! In fact, I would bet that most bomb makers avoid putting flashy lights on their bombs.
One key point to notice near the bottom of the article - she did not go through security, she was just waiting around for her boyfriend and some guy at an information desk alerted the police. I do not blame the guy for alerting the police, but who considers deadly force on someone in a waiting area of an airport?
If you want to see the Scary device.
Also for those that don't get the back of the shirt, VI = 6 in roman numerals and 6 is the number for EECS at MIT.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Burn-In
Last night I read Burn-In: An Engineering Approach to the Design and Analysis of Burn-In Procedures. This only sort of counts since it was for work, and I'm quite certain no one reading this cares about burn-in so I'll keep the post short.
If you are for some reason interested in burn-in (a procedure for sorting out weaker than normal components and components damaged by manufacturing) it is a nice quick read. The funny thing about the book is it has pages and pages of statistics and reasonably advanced math to come up with some very precise formulas. But they are all based on knowing the reliability of components which is going to be a total guess (by orders of magnitude). One formula is actually proportional to e^C where C is a factor that is generally unknown. Anyway, I found it silly, but I'll stop now since no one cares.
If you are for some reason interested in burn-in (a procedure for sorting out weaker than normal components and components damaged by manufacturing) it is a nice quick read. The funny thing about the book is it has pages and pages of statistics and reasonably advanced math to come up with some very precise formulas. But they are all based on knowing the reliability of components which is going to be a total guess (by orders of magnitude). One formula is actually proportional to e^C where C is a factor that is generally unknown. Anyway, I found it silly, but I'll stop now since no one cares.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Flatliners Game #3
Well this game the Flatliners earned their name. Once the score hit 19 to 0 in the first inning I stopped tracking it. Luckily the mercy rule does not kick in until the 5th inning or else I would not have gotten to play at all. After the first inning we actually did reasonably well. Not sure if we would have won if we didn't count the first inning but we would have done ok (of course the other team may have eased up a bit after the first inning - when the third baseman told one of our runners to go ahead and go for home it was a bit of a hint).
Personally, I did nothing special at bat - forced out at first both times. But I did get my first out. The batter hit the ball fairly high, straight up and I walked over and caught it. I feel like I should have charged to get under it and pushed the batter out of the way, but instead I sort of walked around him like I was worried about getting in his way.
I learned that you are supposed to hold a softball like a baseball (two fingers and the thumb) which was very useful. I also realized that my arm getting tired isn't the problem, but rather my attention dropping off. Along the same lines that I tend to remember stuff if I pay attention to begin with, I get a lot closer to my target if I take a moment to actually focus on throwing the ball.
Personally, I did nothing special at bat - forced out at first both times. But I did get my first out. The batter hit the ball fairly high, straight up and I walked over and caught it. I feel like I should have charged to get under it and pushed the batter out of the way, but instead I sort of walked around him like I was worried about getting in his way.
I learned that you are supposed to hold a softball like a baseball (two fingers and the thumb) which was very useful. I also realized that my arm getting tired isn't the problem, but rather my attention dropping off. Along the same lines that I tend to remember stuff if I pay attention to begin with, I get a lot closer to my target if I take a moment to actually focus on throwing the ball.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Yom Kippur Hollywood Style
I am once again a proud owner of a passport - the chinese government gave it back without too much of a fight (although they did get $100 out of me). But now my passport has a picture of the great wall in it.
I took Friday off to get my passport. Once I got it back I had some time to kill. First I headed to Rodeo Drive. I'm sure it's exciting if you are looking to spend $100,000 on art or clothes or want to look at either of those. But just walking along the street was not as impressive as I expected. If I was going to walk around a fancy shopping area I would go to fashion island instead, although I don't usually walk around fancy shopping areas so not sure how much my opinion counts.
After that I still had some time so I went to the WB studio tour. That was fun. It was a bit weird because there was a group who drove up from dallas, a guy from philly, a girl from australia and I had just headed over to kill some time. When everyone else started taking pictures of everything I realized I probably should have brought a camera. I already realized that movies and TV are fake, but this really helped it sink in. When you look at the front of a house on TV the back of the house is probably the front of another house on the show. The NYC park where they play football in Friends is a tiny stretch of grass in a studio in LA. And of course practically everything is some setup in a sound stage. I did get to see Morpheus's car from the Matrix and the flying car from Harry Potter and I was sorted by the sorting hat (apparently there are 6 that they used, but the one that talks is all green just like a green screen), but I did not appreciate the house it put me in. In case you are curious, I think it is fairly obvious which house I think I should be in, and of course being in the same house as Harry would be good, and I actually don't mind going for pure power.
After the tour and through the next day it actually rained somewhat hard (ok everyone in Boston would laugh, but hard for LA). The craziest thing was over the course of Saturday I saw 9 cars broken down, some of them in the middle of the road. I have no idea why rain would cause cars to break down, it's not like they are special LA cars that aren't made for the rain. But it was way too many cars in one day to be a coincidence. I also got to see the LA river actually be a river (normally it is just a concrete thing that provides a good spot for filming car chases).
On Saturday I went to the Laugh Factory for services with Evan. This time we didn't show up ahead of time and ended up in the overflow room which was the first time I've ever watched the Rabbi on a giant flat screen. It was a bit silly watching on TV, although the room is setup as a lounge so it made for a much more comfortable services experience. Evan was fasting so I went with it. That was an experience I will not repeat soon (well, at least for another year). We were both so tired from not eating we spent the whole day watching TV (sometime someone is going to explain to me how not eating helps people concentrate on praying). For break the fast we went for a giant steak dinner. I was expecting to not be able to eat much, but I cleaned my plate.
I took Friday off to get my passport. Once I got it back I had some time to kill. First I headed to Rodeo Drive. I'm sure it's exciting if you are looking to spend $100,000 on art or clothes or want to look at either of those. But just walking along the street was not as impressive as I expected. If I was going to walk around a fancy shopping area I would go to fashion island instead, although I don't usually walk around fancy shopping areas so not sure how much my opinion counts.
After that I still had some time so I went to the WB studio tour. That was fun. It was a bit weird because there was a group who drove up from dallas, a guy from philly, a girl from australia and I had just headed over to kill some time. When everyone else started taking pictures of everything I realized I probably should have brought a camera. I already realized that movies and TV are fake, but this really helped it sink in. When you look at the front of a house on TV the back of the house is probably the front of another house on the show. The NYC park where they play football in Friends is a tiny stretch of grass in a studio in LA. And of course practically everything is some setup in a sound stage. I did get to see Morpheus's car from the Matrix and the flying car from Harry Potter and I was sorted by the sorting hat (apparently there are 6 that they used, but the one that talks is all green just like a green screen), but I did not appreciate the house it put me in. In case you are curious, I think it is fairly obvious which house I think I should be in, and of course being in the same house as Harry would be good, and I actually don't mind going for pure power.
After the tour and through the next day it actually rained somewhat hard (ok everyone in Boston would laugh, but hard for LA). The craziest thing was over the course of Saturday I saw 9 cars broken down, some of them in the middle of the road. I have no idea why rain would cause cars to break down, it's not like they are special LA cars that aren't made for the rain. But it was way too many cars in one day to be a coincidence. I also got to see the LA river actually be a river (normally it is just a concrete thing that provides a good spot for filming car chases).
On Saturday I went to the Laugh Factory for services with Evan. This time we didn't show up ahead of time and ended up in the overflow room which was the first time I've ever watched the Rabbi on a giant flat screen. It was a bit silly watching on TV, although the room is setup as a lounge so it made for a much more comfortable services experience. Evan was fasting so I went with it. That was an experience I will not repeat soon (well, at least for another year). We were both so tired from not eating we spent the whole day watching TV (sometime someone is going to explain to me how not eating helps people concentrate on praying). For break the fast we went for a giant steak dinner. I was expecting to not be able to eat much, but I cleaned my plate.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Flatliners Game #2
Tonight the flatliners declared a "moral victory". It's not that we won, but the final score was something respectable like 9 to 6 and we made it through all 7 innings!
Apparently I need to work on my skills picking up the ball and tossing it back to the pitcher because I was demoted from catcher to every other inning catcher (I actually do, after a few innings my arm gets tired and the pitcher ends up running after the ball). Although, I did get on base twice. It's sort of crazy because I have no idea where my hits went - actually I can't remember the time between hitting the ball and being about 5 steps into running.
Apparently I need to work on my skills picking up the ball and tossing it back to the pitcher because I was demoted from catcher to every other inning catcher (I actually do, after a few innings my arm gets tired and the pitcher ends up running after the ball). Although, I did get on base twice. It's sort of crazy because I have no idea where my hits went - actually I can't remember the time between hitting the ball and being about 5 steps into running.
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