::::: : the wood : davidrobins.net

My name is David Robins: Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner, libertarian (voluntaryist), and student.

This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.

Heiling taxis

News ·Monday September 18, 2006 @ 23:52 EDT (link)

IEEE sent the new ballots out, but they only have the messed up positions, and I already threw out my old ballot. I washed my hands of the whole mess, and tore up the new one and threw it out too. I guess I could vote online, but what little interest I had in the outcome is long dead.

A couple twits to write about today; first, WA plate 974 TIX, a red Nissan 350z. The fool was in such a hurry getting off the 520 at 51st Street that he had to move into the left lane to pass two cars before turning at 156th. (Didn't do him much good, though. I was right behind him at the 45th light and then after some emergency vehicles went through the light at 40th it was stuck on green, but the left turn signal—he and I were both in different left turn lanes—was stuck red. Eventually he gave up and went straight, and after about a minute the lights started blinking red to turn the whole intersection into a four-way stop.

The second is from last week sometime, actually, 9-11 itself: WA 431 VKQ, and managed to be an idiot without even moving: he took up two parking spaces (opposite, not side-by-side), when he could have handily fit in one. Microsoft building 36, level 3; black Ford Expedition. Learn to park!

Two big things at work: first, reviews; very positive, decent bonus, and some stocks too (they don't do options any more), set to vest over five years, like the grant I got when I started. As things stand now I plan to stay in Word for Office 14; it'll be good to be there for the full design stage, and, as my manager said, have some features of my own rather than just inheriting them. Second, we've tightened the source code depots another notch; stages went about like this: We drove out to Honey's uncle Dave and aunt Lynn's place in Pullman last weekend, returning just in time to check in before the depot closed and OB triage began. We got in around midnight Friday (Saturday morning), and left around 1415 Sunday after church. We'd taken our bikes in (my current carrier is much better than the miserable thing we used to take our other bikes from Boston to WV; it was so bad we left those bikes in Charleston), and then loaded them up in uncle Dave's Ford F350 and biked about 10 miles on a trail in Moscow, ID. We also brought the game Scotland Yard, which was well received, and played Euchre (which I'd taught them) and Snorta (a multi-player War variation). We had a good time, but their dog was a little loud and boisterous although her training's progressing. I also picked up some apples at the farmer's market, for making a blackberry-apple crumble (I picked the blackberries down the road while out walking last week).

(Oh yes, heiling taxis is my term for when people wave their hands around in church to show how much more spiritual they are than the rest of us... too bad I didn't have any Scotland Yard taxi tokens handy.) Also: "Why change the world today when you can foist off the responsibility on your children?" (procreation as procrastination quoted from comments). And: the the state of the school system up north (in BC) is not good; the gays have control of the curriculum, and parents would have to lie to get their kids out of advocacy programs, since they otherwise won't take no for an answer.

Thanks for stopping by, did you break our computer?

News ·Wednesday September 13, 2006 @ 00:40 EDT (link)

On Sunday we drove into town to pick up a power adapter for the Nintendo (NES) and some DVDs (The Manchurian Candidate, the Final Destination trilogy (interesting but logically unsound and inconsistent), Basic Instinct 2, Mad Max (Mel Gibson's first film, and not really all that good), When a Stranger Calls, Mask of Zorro (another victim of the move), and Starship Troopers, a corny but fun flick). Circuit City didn't have any adapters over 500 mA, and the bottom of the Nintendo said 750 mA; I'd tried a 300 mA universal adapter but the power kept blinking on and off (the Mario start screen did come up, however briefly), so we went to the Radio Shack opposite and shelled out $20 for an 800 mA 9V adapter. Brandon Smith had given me the Nintendo back in elementary school when he got his SNES, and I had played it a couple of times and then put it in a box. Honey's played her way through a few games already; I have Super Mario 1 and 2, RC Pro Am, Ninja Gaiden III, Castlevania, Dracula's Curse, and Gauntlet.

I got my IEEE ballot, but they'd made an error, so I'm waiting for a new one since they won't take the old one, even though the names are all right, they just switched two category headings (oops).

Back to the grind at work; I had eight bugs Monday morning, was down to two when I left, got about 4 more Tuesday, and left with just 1, a "Dr. Watson" crash dump bug in the printer code. Most bugs were puntable ("by design" or "won't fix"), some were already fixed; many required investigation, only a couple actually needed code changes: I've submitted a few for triage tomorrow, and have a PR (private release) build for another.

"Damn kids, get off my lawn!" No, not my lawn, x_lysistrata_x's dad's; some kids threw trash on his lawn while he was splitting wood, so he chased one of them, wondering why the kid was running so fast... then realized he'd forgotten to put down the hatchet. They didn't do it any more after that.

Standoff, a new show on Fox, looks interesting. I caught the pilot in WV; the male lead is the main character from Early Edition (the show where the guy gets tomorrow's newspaper and rushes around to prevent Bad Things from happening; guess he never caught Butterfly Effect). Quote: "Did anyone else see [Standoff] tonight? If so, it just goes to show the damage that is caused when the childfree [at] heart have kids they don't want." A kid turns Mohammedan for the bombs, and threatens to blow up a coffee shop, because his mother never loved him. Tragic, I suppose, although they do get him out safely and it's good (especially for Fox) to emphasize that not everyone wants kids.

Title alludes to a call I got from my parents shortly after we got back; turns out they'd been moving some furniture and pulled out a cable. I always get blamed for those things, comes from being the guru; I'm sure many can relate.

Nonfiction's first CD approacheth

News ·Sunday September 10, 2006 @ 23:10 EDT (link)

I'm back from a week out East, visiting family in West Virginia and Ontario, and here are the highlights:

Friday September 1: I didn't fly out until Sunday, so I had a quiet and peaceful Friday night and Saturday. I picked up The Transporter and the sequel, and the Species trilogy, and watched all of them except Transporter 2 on Saturday, which I watched at the airport (SEA and at my layover in ATL). Unfortunately my laptop's DVD drive is going, or the connection; I was able to keep it working by tightly holding the drive to the laptop (Acer TravelMate 4500), but even that's not helping much any more. It's a removable drive, but I can't find anywhere selling replacements and if the connection's gone that won't help anyway. Looks like either a new laptop or maybe a USB DVD reader needs to be added to the shopping list (along with blinds for the dining room and a grill, among other things).

Sunday September 3: I packed in the morning and our friend LL picked me up at 1830; we stopped at a Red Robin to eat and she dropped me off at SEA at aroung 2015; the lines were short and I didn't have any trouble, so, as I mentioned above, I watched Transporter 2 in the C30 lounge. The flight was long and cramped as they are wont to be (to think that when I was little I actually liked flying...) but I managed to doze fitfully and my last ~3 hour nap was broken by an announcement of imminent landing at ATL. Naturally all of my gates were at the far end of the terminal, but walking is good exercise so no worries. I picked up a Coke in ATL (strangely no Pepsi), and a teddy bear for Honey.

Monday September 4: The plane arrived precisely on time, even a little early (0925, scheduled 0930); in contrast, Honey had been late and they lost her luggage, so they weren't expecting me until later. There were only six of us on the ATL to CRW flight, so I got my luggage and was outside at 0930 and read for about 40 minutes until the Hedricks arrived in their Scion xB (looks like a box on wheels).

Wednesday September 6: I left at 0900 to visit my parents in southern Ontario; my in-laws lent me their Chevy Lumina. I carried a jug of water to feed the voracious engine coolant tank (I topped it up about every three hours, which wasn't that much trouble and it was a decent ride, not too hard on gas either). Google maps says it takes 10h23 but I arrived at 1830 (9h30, with stops). Border traffic was light, and going into Canada they didn't even ask for my ID, just where I was going. My parents fed me when I arrived and we watched The Sting and then I stayed up until around 0400 gathering some things from my boxes in their basement: books, games, an original Nintendo (missing a power cable), etc. I'd brought an extra suitcase (I carried a smaller one in a larger) for this purpose.

Thursday September 7: Went to the prayer meeting at Brockview Bible Chapel in the evening; not many youth out; greeted several people; Steve's ISP dropped my email on the floor without sending a bounce message; a pox on all their houses.

Steve and (my cousin) Dave (and Jeff, who I don't know) have a band, Nonfiction, which is just putting the finishing touches on their first CD—the music is done, they just need to communicate with their printer since the artwork proofs had some issues. It sounds pretty good (their MySpace site plays a few tracks on entry), although MySpace is as annoying and teeny-bopper as I'd anticipated. They have a CaféPress store where they sell T-shirts. I'd pick one up but I'm waiting until they put out one with more of a message, rather than just the name of the band.

Anyway, as annoying as MySpace is, from their page I found my cousin Anna's graphics site, @nna ink. designs, a nicely laid out piece of web, and Jesse's page, which is mostly false and crazy as expected (hint: he's not a Vietnam war veteran; the picture is accurate, at least at time of writing). And it seems Emily G. is a Republican (seems strange for a Canadian living in Canada) and a fan of Dubya and Ann Coulter, good for her, or not, so much kidding around these days.

Dad and I got a coffee and donut on the way home from the meeting (at Tim Horton's, where else?); when we got home I decided to head out that night rather than Friday morning, since I didn't have anything else to do and everyone else was going to sleep (almost 2300). I left at midnight and drove for several hours before sleeping for three hours at a rest stop and then another hour a little later; I pulled into Mullens at about 1230, in good time for the cookout on the mountain which was delicious but yellowjackets and various arachnids frequently terrorized the girls.

Saturday September 9: We flew out at 1500 so subtract a few hours for driving and security (not too long at such a small airport as CRW), and off we went; we ate at Bob Evan's on the way. Our second flight out of Atlanta was delayed two hours due to a mechanical problem with the cabin pressurization; they had us remain on board while they diagnosed it and swapped out the part, but they at least started the movie, X-Men III, which wasn't bad (followed by Poseidon, which was entertaining for a while but got boring so got quit of it). MS from MS picked us up from the airport and took us home; I still feel really bad about the flight delay, even though we couldn't do anything about it and had no chance to call him (they never turned on the cabin phones). We got in around 1030, lugged everything inside, and went to sleep promptly.

Neumo's, pressure washing the deck, redundant signage

News ·Friday September 1, 2006 @ 20:42 EDT (link)

There was recently an accident at the roundabout between Duvall and Redmond (NE 124th St. to SR-203, which becomes Main St. in Duvall; another branch forks off to Carnation). I'm unaware of the details; I just drove up and saw a police car in my usual lane in the roundabout, lights on, blocking for a tow truck that was getting ready to remove a wreck. A day or so after this event, new signage started sprouting up all around the roundabout: a small white sign that said "Yield to traffic in roundabout" was affixed to each of the existing yield signs, and several large yellow and black turn arrows were added around the center of the roundabout. As a taxpayer, I'm annoyed at this waste of my money. Drivers already know to drive on the right; the roundabout is well signed from all directions, and who else would you yield to at a yield sign before a roundabout except the bloody traffic in the bloody roundabout? The twit who caused the accident probably threatened to sue the county, so they did this to placate him, when really they should have thrown him in jail for a few years for, in all likelihood, driving like an idiot.

Since I'm ranting about road signs, how about those "Don't Drink and Drive: In Memory of Susie Sweetums" signs? The whole piece of metal is a waste of my money, and of my attention—drivers can only focus on a few things at once, and on the particularly steep and twisty stretch of road where this one is located, that sign shouldn't be one of them. Yes, it's unfortunate, tragic even, that your child was killed by/by being a drunk driver (although one could argue the latter is Darwin popping up with his chainsaw of natural selection). Is it relevant to drivers on that hill? No, not in the least. Will it change anyone's mind? Probably not—I doubt very much driving drunk is premeditated. And last, who cares about your kid? Driving drunk is a bad idea anyway. I don't know your kid, maybe he was a good person, maybe a thug and a philistine; it doesn't matter. It's just ego gratification; get a headstone like the rest of us.

AT and I headed out to Neumos after Wednesday workaholics (which finished surprisingly early; before 2300). Pretty Girls Make Graves were playing; we got there just as they started (2320?), after the opening bands had finished. Dark room, loud music, lotta standing. I wish I'd known the songs since it's hard to pick out lyrics one is hearing for the first time. The club is in Seattle, so I drove; got home around 0130.

I pressure washed our top deck yesterday and this morning ; I spent 4-5 hours in total. I rented the washer from the nearby True Value, for $35 for a half day. Tough work, and fairly wet, too (soaked my shoes, so I wore sandals to work, NH style); I had to hold the sprayer about 1"-2" from the surface of all the wood on the deck (think railings, each post having four sides...) and cover all of it slowly and methodically, feathering so as not to leave too many stop marks. I was nervous about starting it, to tell the truth, having never used so much as a gas-powered lawn mower; there were no instructions and a few of the knobs and levers' covers had fallen off, but eventually I figured the choke, gears ("start" and "on"), and the pressure adjuster; turn the red switch on, gear to start, open the choke, pull the starter, gear down, adjust pressure (and choke) and go. I ran out of gas just as I was finishing, but I had to fill it before returning it anyway, so it wasn't much time lost. The former owners came to stain the deck while I was at work (this had been agreed to after the inspection as part of the sale); it looks good (same color as the lower deck, light honey brown).

Interesting bug today, although it turned out not to be so interesting; AT, MS, and I were looking at some code with two string (BSTR) allocations; the second seemed to get allocated and copied right on top of the first. Turned out to be heap corruption due to a mis-freed string earlier (but later in the same function).

Another interesting bug with a BEAR (it's a near-acronym for an idle task to download images); the task is created, it downloads the image and invalidates layout (so the image is drawn instead of the placeholder), then the task tries to unregister itself - when an image is downloaded it has no more work to do. However, it throws an exception (which readlly should have asserted; shame on you, OArt) so never unregisters itself - so we keep getting called at idle for already downloaded images. This leads to a lot of unnecessary blinking and redrawing, sometimes to the point where performance is impacted. It ended up beign a "smart pointer" bug - the object held one smart pointer proxy, but another one was created and given to the registration code, although they both pointed at the same BEAR. We tried to pass the initial proxy to the unregister code, but since it had no "strong" references (because we created the second proxy instead), it threw an exception.

The virtual megalibrary

News ·Tuesday August 29, 2006 @ 21:40 EDT (link)

Content providers want DRM, but here's an idea that might slow them down a little - at least until they can buy some new legislation:

If there is a verifiable way to transfer 'possession' of a media file between a website to a user (and back), then a virtual mega-library (VML) can be founded, working like a real library, where it's legal to lend out materials provided only one person can use them at a time (and not easily copy them).

Everyone that joins rips all their CDs and DVDs to DRM'd media files and uploads them (rescinding use permission to the website). All members can 'borrow' any file that's checked in; if the user's client software doesn't report in after a certain period, it will revoke the user's license to whatever he has checked out and the website gets it back. When the client software checks in, if there are holds on the material (or the owner wants to remove their material), the license is transferred back to the site or the owner of the material. Some sort of reciprocity can be put into effect: what you can borrow is directly related to the amount of material that you've contributed. Given proper categorization (and that's already been done via the various CDDBs), and sufficient participation, I could log on with my client software and ask to play a random selection of music by Mozart all afternoon: the client would search for a media file that the site has a license to, transfer the license to me ('check out'), play the file, and transfer the license back ('check in'). If my Internet connection went down, the license would eventually revert back to the site (the contributor could assign a timeout period, say 24 hours). Popular music would be contributed from many sources, so there would be several licensed copied of a given CD or song; if the demand was higher than the availability, requests could be queued.

Given 1000 participants each with 50 CDs with 10 songs each, that's 5 million songs available - at no monetary cost to the user, who already owns their CDs. The cost is just a temporary loss of use, and, guess what, you can only listen to one song at a time anyway! It's legal to lend the media, why not do it virtually? This idea should scare the record companies a great deal.

R.I.P., Frank and Bev Herbert

News ·Monday August 28, 2006 @ 21:42 EDT (link)

"I was an immigrant... my parents made us read dictionaries, ... memorize the dictionary... and write essays."
—Teresa Lin, Fear Factor

On one side, ladies and gentlemen, we have a girl who immigrated from China, whose parents encouraged her work hard to learn English, and who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and became a successful model. On the other side, we have entitlement-minded illegal alien Mexicans, who want to ghettoize and balkanize the country, who demand the government speak to them in their language, who refuse to integrate. I rest my case. Kudos to you, Teresa Lin, and to your parents.

Played Warcraft tonight; won against a level 19 Human (I'm level 12). He was going gyrocopters for some reason, and they just weren't all that good against my rifles. He tried to creep-jack me and my MK and I forced him and his Paladin to portal out, then we ran into each other's armies near his base, I wiped his out, and then bulled right into the base, where, despite heavy losses, I was victorious.

Last (Frank Herbert) Dune book, Chaperhouse: Dune finished. Touching obituary for his wife at the end; he died two years later (1986). He lived in the Puget Sound area. Now back to reading the Mallorean.

Work: frustrating since I have some timing-sensitive, remote-only, ship-only bugs (pick any two...), although when my build completes (and I have faith, really I do) I hope to be able to test the Japan-crash bug locally.

What were you doing in Canada, eh?

News ·Sunday August 27, 2006 @ 15:54 EDT (link)

High time for an update. Also high time to update the financial records system; it's been two months since I've added any entries, but now I have plenty of time since Honey's in WV for two weeks (I'll be joining her soon). I dropped her at the airport Friday morning; we left at 0830 and got there around 0930; her flight was at 1130. We thought it prudent to be early given the possibility of traffic (although it wasn't too bad), and the new FAA travel requirements and possible increased searching leading to longer than usual delays.

For anyone that needs a rebuttal to something they may have sent me recently, try that link to a 6-month old post (some filtering required); thanks to LjSEEK.com for a most excellent search engine that I discovered for this purpose. Note also that the amount about 50% low compared to more up to date studies, and even then, it's more than I pay for my car, and it gets me places. Anyway; I got over it and decided not to block the sender from all my domains.

I finally baked the fruit cobbler (crumble) that I was meaning to, about two weeks ago. (AT cooked it for the second part of SW's farewell, which we didn't attend so I got to see it but not taste it.) I put in just about all the fruit mentioned on the page, except I had to substitute peaches for apricots. It's been years since I've had rhubarb, and it was delicious. I ate the last piece Friday; it will be missed.

So I'm home alone this weekend, and I haven't done much except read the Mallorean and watch The Fugitive and U.S. Marshalls and practice piano. I did go looking for garage sales Saturday morning, after my mom called (Hi mom!) but didn't find many and the few I found didn't have anything to tempt me. Heather Morris stopped by Saturday evening after the neighborhood grillout (I would have attended, but had nothing to bring...) to drop off some manuals and warranties for various appliances, and to talk; we should have them over sometime.

I'm also eligible to file my N-400 (application for naturalization) form on our third anniversary, the 30th; my mom's worried about me getting drafted, but (1) you have to register for the Selective Service when becoming a permanent resident ("green card" holder) anyway, and (2) it's only between ages of 18 and 26, so I missed it since I didn't get my green card paperwork until after my 26th birthday, although it's back-dated to the year before. So I'll probably go for it - the U.S. is pretty tolerant about dual citizenships these days, so I'll be able to keep my U.K. and Canadian citizenship - and it'll let me vote, and get a gun (yay).

I came across an old observation that it was 26 hours from my parents' place to Minot, ND. From here, it's 23.5 hours - it seems to be right in the middle. Still on the memory lane trip (I was looking through old entries, trying to find dates for the N-400), I found some debates that MM and I had had over various issues, so I decided to check if her page was still up, and it is, and she has a LiveJournal account, but it hasn't been updated for a while. I'm still digging through old paperwork to fill out the N-400: exact employment, moving, and traffic citation dates can be hard to find. The last thing I need is dates that I was out of the country for 24 hours or more, since I become a permanent resident (i.e. approximately over the past three years). That'll be fun... although this log was written for times like these.

Over the past month I had a good deal of dental work done; first, a cleaning, then about five fillings over three two-hour appointments; the last one was last Wednesday, the 23rd. I don't have to go back there now until February, for my regular cleaning. Our total out of pocket was about $150, not too terrible. Honey had a filling come loose and had to have a cavity underneath it filled, too; fortunately her dentist (we go to different ones; I go to Dr. Brian D, Brooks, since he's not far from work, she goes to a Dr. Dirakshani (sp?)) could get her in quickly to fix it.

At work, we're just finishing B2TR (beta 2 technical refresh); I got what I think was the last Word fix into it, for a License Wizard (OEM tool) related bug. Now we're looking only toward RTM (release to manufacturing) in October, and every bug must be triaged. Also, we're back on Workaholic Wednesdays (work until the bug goal is reached, no matter how late it gets); we've had three so far.

(Title is a nod to "What are you doing in Canada, eh?" quote from That '70s Show, when they end up in Canada talking to the RCMP.

RAS is still super-unreliable

News ·Wednesday August 16, 2006 @ 01:11 EDT (link)

Lately (and by that I mean over the last few months), RAS (Windows remote connectivity into work) has been very unreliable. There are two steps to logging in remotely: connecting to the VPN, and then connecting to the remote machine via terminal server. First the first broke, and I was getting strange errors connecting to the network itself (which MS IT eventually got fixed for me, though neither they nor I am sure which step actually fixed the problem); now I keep getting random network errors connecting to my remote machine (any of the three), although I can ping then and connect to servers on them just fine. I wish the incompetent twits over there would just leave well alone and not try to "fix" what wasn't broken.

And finally some extracts from an article on pregnant teens (for sources see article itself; warning, crude language): * Well, 131 million returns which means there could be a lot less people actually paying taxes; divide it out, about $53 each.

Garage sailing in Duvall

News ·Saturday August 5, 2006 @ 14:05 EDT (link)

Twit of the Day
I'm going to start featuring twits, mainly drivers. Our first contestant is WA plate 328 LZM, a purple Chrysler PT Cruiser, who doesn't understand that "yield" doesn't mean "try for a collision." This was at the merge lane right at the end of the WA-520 (Avondale Road), and this idiot just kept driving like he was blind. Good going, you're our first twit!

Our second twit isn't so bad, and was a day or so later; he just never signalled, all the way to Duvall. Dark (navy) blue extrawide truck, WA plate A96056U.

We finally got out to a few garage sales this Saturday, starting on our own street. Altogether we bought:
  1. Two (more) "deluxe" folding beach chairs and a wicker picnic basket and set, $10
  2. An Ikea desk; we put it on top of the car and I held it out the window, $40
  3. A Quartz clock and a camera bag (a spare one, padded for hiking trips), $5
We put the desk upstairs in the media room with my camera gear, frames, etc.; I put the legs on with my drill. No chair in there yet. We'll probably put the new computer there when we get it.

Five barrels and no gophers

News ·Tuesday August 1, 2006 @ 21:47 EDT (link)

As we descended from this dome we arrived at a spot, on the gradual descent of the hill, nearly four acres in extent, and covered with small holes. These are the residence of a little animal called by the French petit chien (little dog), which sit erect near the mouth and make a whistling noise, but when alarmed take refuge in their holes. In order to bring them out we poured into one of the holes five barrels of water without filling it....

—William Clark, Corps of Discovery

The site has been down for a few days due to Gentoo bug #135238, which is still stuck at status "NEW". Sometimes, you get what you pay for (hint: bugs don't sit in the Office12 database that long without investigation). The fundamental problem is that two packages want Kerberos, but they want a particular flavor (either MIT or Heimdal), and they're incompatible, but one claims it'll take either, but it lies.

We had a great weekend with family from Pullman; they arrived Thursday and stayed with us, visiting Seattle during the day, and then on Saturday we headed to Cape Disappointment State Park (named by a British sea captain who expected more of the headwaters of the Columbia), camping overnight and visiting the lighthouse and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on Sunday. We headed back at around 1600, making good time on US 101 and then highway 12 to the I-5, a quite scenic drive.

We're doing workaholics Wednesday again tomorrow; hopefully it won't go too late. I found the crumble recipe I was looking for (that AT made for SW's leavetaking); it's called a cobbler on the site, which misled me. I found Infamous Adventures' King's Quest III, a VGA remake of the original; looks pretty good, although mere VGA resolution is pretty coarse by modern standards.

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