Author: cdwan

New York Times article on a device that scares me.

The device, which is about the size of a throw pillow but as firm as a seat cushion, is shaped like a person about to give a hug, with two arms reaching up and out from a small torso.

To send a hug, the grandchild would squeeze the left paw of her device and speak her grandfather’s name into a microphone in the top of the torso. Voice recognition software in the processor in the device identifies the name and matches it to a preset phone number corresponding to the other Hug. The girl’s Hug calls the grandfather’s, which lights up and plays sounds. To accept the hug, he squeezes the left paw and says hello, opening a direct voice link between the two.

Once the connection is established, the girl squeezes or pats the device. Sensors convert those motions into a data stream that is sent to the other Hug and converted on that end into vibrations through small motors embedded in the device. Thermal fibers around the Hug’s belly radiate heat that increases with time. The hug is ended by pressing the right paw and saying goodbye.

If someone is not home to receive a hug, the other person can leave a message that includes voice and vibration patterns. The Hug can store up to four messages.

Computers suck. Software sucks. Nuff said about web-services and the omnipresent “grid.”

In more mundane news, people say a lot of stuff at coffee shops that I didn’t need to know about. Wow. Your butt, you say? Who knew? Not me, not until you sat and loudly discussed it over there.

And, finally, I did a google search on “startlingly powerful toilet flush” (a sign of my advancing age: I sometimes look at the fixtures available in hotels and people’s homes and think “how can I discretely ask them where they bought this startlingly powerful toilet?” Anyway, pressure assisted toilets seem to be a good idea. Save water, scare the cats at the same time. Ooooooooo.

Sadly, our pet-sitter just went from “super cool” to “a little creepy.”

She sent a card with pictures of our pets (looking very content, I must say). The pictures were taken inside our home, while we were on vacation.

The concept of a thank you card to a customer is a good one. One must take care not to creep out the customer with one’s gesture of thanks.

In lighter news, back to griping about politics:

Cartographic maps of the election results

Last night at karate class, I helped a 15 year old girl really understand how to cause pain with a wrist lock. We were practicing the “locking hawk” technique, and she just wasn’t getting it. Locking Hawk goes something like this:

* Assailant is swinging a club (beer bottle, ash tray, something small and hard) in from the side, aiming for the side of your head.
* Step in with the right foot and block their wrist with your left hand. Right hand goes under their arm to trap their upper arm inside your elbow.
* Adjust your block (left hand) to grab their wrist, and sweep with the right foot to put them down on their back. It helps to lean forward with your right shoulder.
* Step over them with your right foot and pull the wrist across so that their arm is locked and painful.
* Take the club and hit them with it.

I’m okay with the fact that a 15 year old girl isn’t able to knock me down during practice. We sort of go with the flow about this sort of thing. Everyone knows that in the real world, in order to knock down someone much bigger than you, you have to do things that will leave a mark…which are not encouraged in the classroom setting (the classics are the snap-kick to the groin, or a throat strike).

Still, she was just missing the point with the wrist lock. Finally I stopped her at that point in the technique and said “look, that doesn’t work at all. Do this instead.” It took a bit to communicate the fundamental idea of a wrist lock (the arm has to be twisted so the palm faces backwards, with the elbow straight, and then pressure is applied at the knuckles to fold and flex the wrist. It requires no strength, and it hurts like stink. In a couple of minutes, she was able to do it “right,” which meant that I was in a world of hurt. It was really gratifying to see the technique turn from some sort of dance move into something that she might be able to use to actually defend herself.

I feel like I did my good deed for the day, though my wrist is still kind of sore.

Good: Halo 2. Early in the first mission, two big “hunter” class aliens bust through a door. The sergeant who’s been leading my platoon of NPC marines yells “Hunters! Step back men, let the Master Chief show you how it’s done!” Excuse me, but the way it’s done is that NPCs take bullets for the protagonist. That’s how it’s done.

Bad: No heat in the house this morning. Those who have been following the house saga will remember the oil-furnace that also provides hot water. Yeah. Single point of freakin’ failure for both hot water and warm house. I “pushed the button” and it didn’t re-light. I’ve got a call in to the natural gas company. If it’s only $K or so to run a gas line to the house, plus the water heater, I could be done with this process before winter. I’m currently spending about $200 per month (supposedly the average over a year…the “budget plan”) for this crap that doesn’t work very well and is going to keep getting more expensive until we stop pissing off the people who own the ground in which the oil sleeps.

Good: Ashcroft resigned.

Bad: Car at the shop for the big “half of life” tune up. American made cars are expected to last about 120,000. Mine is about to hit 60,000. So, while it’s on warrantee and before the service contract expires, I want them to poke every aspect of the vehicle and make sure it’s tip-top. Plus, this gives me an introduction to the Jeep dealership in town. Thus, when some crap falls off the car in Feb, I can say “you tools! I paid you hundreds of dollars to do the most expensive maintenance you offer! Fix my car!” Not that I want to do that, I want the car to “just work,” but when it doesn’t…I want to be able to be righteous.

Good: The cold house motivated me to install the storm windows this morning. Brrrr.

Enough griping about politics for the moment. I’m going to gripe about other stuff.

coin

The Rhode Island branch of DwanCo is pleased to announce that we have doubled our beer production capacity. With the addition of a new primary fermentation vessel, as well as the addition of a state of the art three-piece airlock, we can now have 10 gallons of beer in process at a time. DwanCo, RI remains your one stop shop for brewing, hot sauces, custom parallel and bioinformatics software, and high performance computing for the life sciences.

Yes, the primary fermenter is an ordinary 6 gallon bucket. Thanks for asking.

CNN reports that Iraq today declared a 60 day state of emergency.

Quick on the uptake, these Iraqis.

Any talk at this point about the election being rigged is just bitter carping and backbiting. In the real world, the game is played with all available tools, and the republicans know that far, far better than the democrats. Talk about a fixed election, deliberately skewed electronic voting machines, and the like is silly whining and a waste of energy at this point.

However, a good gripe is sometimes good for the soul. Lance the wound and let the healing begin, says me. To that end:

compressed bitter carping