tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:21:23 +0000http://kovaya.com/miscellany/YaakovBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-6856614320573361608Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:15:00 +00002008-03-31T20:41:49.311-04:00No, this blog is not dead. Some folks have even expressed concern that perhaps something has "happened" to me. Rest assured, it is nothing more than life's demands overwhelming free time. Thanks for the concern. I have several articles partially completed so look for my triumphant return soon. As a reminder, I always enjoy receiving email, and you can find a link in the sidebar. I enjoy http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2008/03/it-lives.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-6975949253216441677Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:37:00 +00002008-01-02T18:48:20.836-05:00picturesweathersnow larger version here It's been snowing around here. I don't like snow but at least it is pretty. This photo was taken about two hours before sunrise. It is a one second exposure.  http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2008/01/weather-outside-is-frightful.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-2868506214235418209Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:58:00 +00002007-11-23T15:58:37.026-05:00Tools are inert. Every tool must be wielded by a person. People use tools to achieve goals. The result of wielding a tool is a product of the skill and intent of the wielder, and the suitability of the tool to the task. Consider a tree saw: it can be used to destroy a tree, to kill it, or it can be used to prune a tree, cutting away deadwood and diseased limbs to strengthen it. The way in http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/11/saw-of-science.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-1577401133178522330Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:53:00 +00002007-11-14T09:21:23.488-05:00 Anything completely clear is wrong, or not very interesting.  http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/11/clarity.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-5938284879769253832Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:02:00 +00002007-11-07T14:43:43.549-05:00conservationNow that something about 150,000 of you have visited this post, and about 19,000 of you have made links to it, perhaps I can do something to redeem all the attention paid to it. In a way loosely coupled to INSERT COIN, the campaign to save trees, through reminding people where we get paper, came to my attention. What can be better than reminding people of what they already know? I have http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/11/redeeming-social-value.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-4663220712033860473Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:54:00 +00002007-11-06T12:10:15.971-05:00kidsfunToday, Shlomo (our youngest, at 6), came walking stiff-legged into the room and up to my wife. Where did Igor get that brain? Shlomo:  I am acting like Frankenstein. E equals M C squared. Shoshi:   That's Einstein. Shlomo:  Oh. Sometimes Shlomo says things that leave us scratching our heads. I still don't know where he learned about E=MC².http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/11/relatively-monstrous.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-2371985930616565300Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:44:00 +00002007-11-01T15:54:29.716-04:00funpicturesAround here the squirrels can be a bit nutty. They get used to humans and lose much of their fear. This leads to odd behaviors. I have seen squirrels do this in the trees but never like this, on the ground. In spite of appearances, the little guy did not just come from the tree It is very hard to avoid assigning human emotions to animals. I don't know if this squirrel was really having funhttp://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/11/you-are-what-you-eat.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-6169669294343020721Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:23:00 +00002007-11-06T12:19:13.965-05:00iusethissoftwareosxThere are hundreds of application download sites out there, but can you trust their ratings and awards? Probably not. Luckily, if you are an OS X user, my friend Marcus has come up with a great solution for you. Combining the idea of social networking and tagging sites with software recommendations, his site here, lets the user community give the recommendations. Just like digg or http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/what-do-you-use.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-7455391849738389029Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:44:00 +00002007-12-11T19:29:01.422-05:00ethicsthinkingcoinsLately, I have been working on a heuristic for systematic thinking that I believe is very powerful. I'd like to share it with you. Maybe you can help me refine it. For a long time I have found myself alternately embracing opposing viewpoints. At first this bothered me. It seemed to be non-committal, indecisive and not useful for decision-making. However, I have come to see it as quite http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/two-sides-of-coin.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-2278957968975081364Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:30:00 +00002008-01-11T12:47:55.524-05:00imagesnasaNASA has provided satellite views of the recent Southern California wildfires. These pictures bring home both the enormity and insignificance of the fires. Compared to the land mass of the US they are small spots, but the smoke they are producing is prodigious. Wildfires burn in California (full size image here) High resolution versions of other great photos available here.http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/amazing-nasa-imagery.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-1201923079607806789Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:45:00 +00002007-10-24T04:48:33.511-04:00shoelacesknotsHow many times do you stop to ties your shoes in one day? If your answer isn't "once for each time I put on my shoes" maybe you need to know about "Granny Syndrome" ("double-knotters" I am talking to you, too.) About 20 years ago I got tired of constantly retying my shoes. They would come untied a dozen or more times a day. I decided to do something about it. I set out to invent or discover http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/your-shoe-is-untied.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-8955138590725659637Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:59:00 +00002007-11-06T12:04:20.162-05:00volvoingerAbout a year ago I bought a new car. OK, new to me. She is about 13 years old now (yes, it is a she and her name is Inger). She is a 1995 850 Volvo Estate Turbo. I paid $4,800 cash for her and have her title. Inger in her favorite color, red. I think she is lovely. Her original MSRP was about $35,000. She has a full leather interior, power moon roof, CD changer, fancy climate control... http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/i-love-my-car.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-1647680388004571457Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:23:00 +00002007-11-06T12:03:37.979-05:00perlPerl makes quick programming very easy and more elaborate things possible. It is an exceptionally flexible, easy to grow into language with an outstanding group of people using it. The Perl Community is every bit as exceptional as perl itself. Even if you've never written a program, or if your programming experience is restricted to things like DOS batch, perl is something you can learn. If http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/learning-perl.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-5782707909432730721Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:10:00 +00002007-11-01T16:05:52.522-04:00funperlYOU CAN FIND THE ORIGINAL POST HERE. Wow. This post has seen more than 50,000 hits in less than two days (UPDATE: it has now exceeded 110,000 in three days). To say that it was unexpected is completely insufficient to describe my reaction. In any case, thanks for sharing my fun. And that's exactly what this is meant to be, fun. Not malicious, not mean-spirited, not damaging in any way. http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/undoing-insert-coin-and-related-ideas.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-7818231325334802517Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:48:00 +00002007-11-06T12:03:00.856-05:00funperlI mentioned, here, that I wrote a program to put the weather on the HP 4200 in our office. The program uses the perl Geo::METAR module to parse METAR weather information from NOAA. You'll need to install the module if you don't already have it (and you probably don't). Install it using ActiveState's PPM for Windows and the CPAN program (or OS package manager) for everything else. You will http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/get-weather-on-your-hp-4200.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-4422508767990519882Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:17:00 +00002007-10-21T13:25:29.181-04:00win32perlIt appears that a lot of people don't have any idea how to run a perl program under Windows. Perl runs just about anywhere and Windows is no exception. The easiest way, and the way I recommend, is to download ActiveState's free Windows Perl distribution. It is very friendly with a nice installer. Once you have it installed, the program in this post will run fine. While you are at it, http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/using-perl-with-windows.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-8165056841826662635Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:22:00 +00002007-11-07T14:51:14.934-05:00funsysadminhardwareperlPLEASE READ THIS BEFORE USING THE PROGRAM (or if you are not amused) Can this silliness be used for good? Perhaps... It is amazing how unaware some people can be. This little perl program allows you to set the "Ready Message" on HP printers to whatever you'd like. (if you want to run it under Windows, and don't know how, read this.) I wrote it after coming across the command in an HPPJL (HP http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/insert-coin.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-6406546546514090888Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:06:00 +00002007-10-07T21:58:27.722-04:00morrisartscraftsIn the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution had a dramatic impact on the lives of traditional artisans and craftsmen. Factories appeared turning out cheap, identical wares which aped the possessions of the rich. Fake porcelain, fake ornamental furniture and other goods made to appear posh flooded the market. The makers of traditional pottery, furniture, clothing andhttp://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/10/lesser-arts-of-life.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-8518495909499017015Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:42:00 +00002007-10-21T13:28:20.116-04:00fictionThe basis for the dialog was an idea that occurred to me when I was reading a few things on quantum computing. It is intentionally vague in areas, mostly it was just a fun idea. However, in a somewhat serious discussion with my friend Craig Lent, he pointed out a problem with my coin-flipping version of Penrose's variation on Schrödinger's gedankenexperiment. That is, he pointed out that Chaoshttp://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/09/problem-with-dont-mind-entropy.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-1391357456116702788Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:08:00 +00002007-09-26T07:08:18.025-04:00fictionIf you're right about this it's going to make global warming look like Y2K! Oh, I'm right you can count on it. Take another look in the box. One look was disturbing enough, thanks. But I still don't understand, what is it you say is happening? OK, one more time, slowly. You know that around 2005 or so, people started using quantum effects to build computing devices. Quantum Cellular http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/09/dont-mind-entropy.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-7582953425122871856Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:06:00 +00002007-11-06T12:09:42.032-05:00eudaemonialifeMovies are a vehicle for vicarious adventure. We love to sit for an hour or two and experience adventures through our favorite characters. Surely there's nothing wrong with that--or is there? Why should we live vicariously? Why aren't we the ones living the adventure? What is stopping you from doing what you love? Shouldn't we stop sitting around and start doing something about this?We http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/09/life-should-be-adventure.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-8878654160505714656Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:36:00 +00002008-02-07T17:58:43.510-05:00sandiskhardwareliquidmetalA few months ago I decided I needed a higher capacity USB flash drive. I was very happy with my Sandisk Cruzer Micro (mine was the previous generation), but it was puny (512MB, never mind my first hard drive was 20!), and I didn't like the loose cap that covers the connector. I had seen the new Sandisk Cruzer Micro and liked the idea of 4GB and the retractable connector—no cap to lose! I http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/07/its-not-titanium-its-better.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-6700327623145698428Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:35:00 +00002007-10-23T19:58:02.105-04:00x-windowsysadminunixSo, it turns out that Xnest, in spite of being part of most standard distributions of X-Window, is obscure. Too many people, "I've never heard of that." followed by "Wow, that's pretty cool" so—here's the story. Xnest is a sort of Janus of the X-Window world. On one face you'd swear is was an X-Server, on the other an X-Client. So why is that useful? Consider: I want to run a Gnome desktop http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2007/07/xnest-fun-with-x-window.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-114945806392191022Sun, 04 Jun 2006 21:49:00 +00002007-11-06T12:10:55.958-05:00hardwarehackingHarvesting Cells for Economy What do you do when your favorite little flashlight wants oddball AAAA sized cells that are going to empty your wallet faster than you'd like? There's always buying "wholesale"... The flashlight I carry with me everywhere to aid my old eyes uses some very unusual, and very expensive, AAAA cells. (Yes, that's four A's). At about $4.00 USD for a set of three to fillhttp://kovaya.com/miscellany/2006/06/frugal-hacker.htmlYaakovtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29044569.post-114908297456696946Wed, 31 May 2006 12:56:00 +00002007-11-06T12:11:31.083-05:00toolsopticsflashlightsI got my first pair of glasses at 30. Though the opthamologist said she didn't usually write a prescription for such a small correction, I insisted. You see, I had started spending a lot of time in front of a CRT and I had noticed a curious thing, the periods looked like little ringed planets, and the rings—parallel to the ground with a level head—moved to whatever angle my head was tilted. http://kovaya.com/miscellany/2006/05/tools-for-old-eyes.htmlYaakov