traveling back in time

Let's go back in time, shall we? Because, you know, that's evidently possible and stuff.

We, and by 'we' I do mean the royal 'we' and 'we' meaning chinh and I, will be attending linked event because we are nerds. And, as nerds we are firm believers that going back in time is super sweet. Kind of like Star Trek, and it don't get much nerdier than that. It is one of the many benefits of living in this new location, working in a super sweet job. How sweet could it possibly be? May I suggest just a couple of videos for your consideration. And, no, NASA is not my employer... not directly at least.

Of course I could be doing something like this instead. Which would also be sweet, if not as destructive as one might like. But, you have to admit that its pretty cool. And if you don't, well then you are just not thinking hard enough about the problem. It is funny to read the comments listed under the above videos. They usually fall into two diametrically opposed categories: awesome! and sarcastic cynicism. Both suffer from a same problem, they don't think about the problem (whatever it is, be it crashing helicopters to study injury or solving a rubix cube) and simply same the first thing that comes to mind. Kind of like defecating out one's mouth, its not pretty and leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. So, stop, take a breath, and critically think about the problem, you'll find much better things to praise/criticize. Trust me.

I try to be a bit objective now in this blog. Not that I don't have plenty of opportunities to gush about how I might love one of these (get your mind out of the gutter) but because I feel particularly vulnerable sharing honest opinions, let alone feelings, with the slobbering horde that exists in this medium. (see above for further explanation) It is this very feeling that makes something like this so much more amazing. To be fair, half of my obsession with this publication is the amazing amount of data produced in such a beautiful way. The second part is a grotesque fascination with people who could expose such intimate details about their lives. It's a little like see a horrific accident on the highway, you are repulsed by the death but are fascinated by the destruction. Is that person still alive? Did everyone make it out before the car caught fire (and we all know how many car fires there are in the district)? And so you slow down, and stare. You are not a terrible person, horses are terrible people. One reads these blogs with the same fascination, like watching a train wreck, you want to see how it turns out and thank God that it's not you.

On the other hand, I guess it is good that we are beings that feel and project emotion. The other option is we could all be robots.

peace,

ko

plantains, the better banana

although i cannot take full credit for that wonderful quote, i not only wholeheartedly agree with the statement but i also personally know the individual dispensing such wisdom. i'll give you a hint; we sleep in the same bed (unless i've done something stupid). above quote was given while having lunch at the amazing delicious tortilla cafe in the eastern market, enjoying some life changing pupusas. seriously, these things will change your life. if they don't, you are not alive and that makes you a zombie. we all know what to do with zombies.

in a past life i used to work for a car maker. as you can imagine, given the recent troubles of various car makers, it is probably good that such a statement is in the past tense. however, one of the things i do miss are the auto shows. why? you might ask. well, suffice to say, i believe this cartoon explains it exquisitely. i will let you guess what category i would fall in.

and, finally, i believe there is good and evil. that there is wrong and right, and often the line between the two is as clear as a giant cleft in the earth. continuing the theme of 'kids say the darndest things', i give you the following story. read and think about good and evil, sometimes there isn't as much 'gray area' as we would like to believe. (note: story comes from the beloved cartoon creator of penny-arcade.com)

I don't mean to turn PA into an episode of Kids say the darnedest things but some of you might appreciate this. I was playing Star Wars with my son the other night when he said something funny. Little Gabe is obsessed with Star Wars and so much of our play time involves reenacting the movies. On this particular occasion he was playing the role of the emperor while I was Luke Skywalker. He had seated himself in my computer chair and when he spun around to face me I saw that he had placed a toy Lightsaber on the arm rest. He patted it gently and said "You want this don't you?" I could not help but laugh at how ridiculous the scene was. This bothered him and he told me not to laugh at him because he was the emperor and he was evil. "Yes I know." I told him and tried to get my act together but his little angry eyes underneath the hood of his Mickey Mouse sweatshirt made me laugh even more. "I'm bad." he said and as if to prove it told me "I litter!"

"What?" I asked "What do you mean you litter?" He pushed back his hood and looked at me seriously "Well littering is against the law and the Emperor does all bad things right?" I imagined the Emperor stalking the halls of the Deathstar and munching on a snickers bar. He finishes the last bite and throws the crumpled wrapper over his shoulder. An Imperial Guard bends to snatch it up and the Emperor raises a hand. "Leave it." he croaks. The guard pauses, his red gloved hand shudders as it hovers over the bit of garbage lying there on the Deathstar's polished Durasteel floor. The emperor watches the guard's discomfort with growing satisfaction, a smile creasing his shriveled face. The Guard stands and follows the Emperor away and he can not help but spare a backwards glance at the trash he left behind. With the glance comes a thought, a thought he will never share out-loud but one that shakes him to his very core. "I serve a monster!"

I looked at my son and realized that in his five year old mind there is no gradient to evil. For him, the act of destroying Alderaan and littering are equal. The sort of person who could to one might easily do the other. I smiled at him "Of course he litters son. He litters all the time." He smiled knowingly and I reached out with the force to summon my Lightsaber.

-Gabe out

neat, right? Dear Lord, thank you for Star Wars and the lessons it continues to teach us. i'm off to get some plantains. don't worry, i'll properly dispose of the peels.

peace,
ko

while watching the olympics

make sure your kids are not playing with these dangerous things. or maybe you should? i mean, it couldn't be much worse than spending all your time tracking your mouse, or creating a treemap of some interesting data, or contemplating how mathematical functions are represented in the physical world, instead of going to say... your son's soccer game, or daughter's dance recital. your are not a bad person. horses are bad people.

while you are off being a bad parent, i'm going to listen to songs about MRI's. that's right, i'm going to listen to songs focused on magnetic resonance imaging, you have a problem with that? who cares about your opinion, you horse.

...

you know, instead of all that, why don't you watch the olympics? here's a little history to get you started.

peace,
ko

its still cold here

and yet, it seems that people here in baltimore still don't want to turn on the heat. while i agree that baltimore, maryland is no ann arbor michigan when it comes to the cold, there is a point where saving money just isn't worth it. a co-worker of mine who lives in the city remarked that the area this 'home' (and i do use this term loosely) is located in a mostly college student/medical campus area and while they don't strike me as the doctor type, maybe they are just trying to pay the student loans. more power to them.

just a quick update to let you know i'm still alive. hopefully more interesting things to talk about in the future.

peace,
ko

continuing with the theme...

... of poaching my friends links sent to myself and reposting them as new information, i give you this: new evidence that we are indeed in an era of progress. or, maybe not, maybe they should have googled the 'how too' manual. o, wait... too soon?

again, now that your sarcasm meters are properly tuned...

in all seriousness, the data is quite striking. for a guy who spends months preparing for a test that might last all of 300 ms (if its long, and yes that is in units of 1e-3 seconds) and then spend several more months pouring over the data, it is amazing to see all of these numbers that must have been a result of a lot of hard work. even better, they took the time to plot it in a way where you are practically force fed conclusions. want to live a long life in the southern hemisphere? austrialia might just be for you. wonder why people are still talking about crippling poverty in sub-saharan africa? learn to read a bar graph. think mexico city has a ton of greenhouse gases? try turkey on for size. all in all, quite a pretty picture. i think that the saddest thing is that men are now the majority. joke is on them though, i'm already married. take that 'sucka'!

yes, i tried once again to call on my thug life. yes, i'm done now.

i've been playing a fantastic, diablo-esk (is that a word?) game recently and throughly enjoying every penny of the $19.95 i paid for it. in an era when games are $60 or more, this is quite a fantastic development, especially considering that i have a $50 per month allowance. if nothing else, it will keep me busy until something else drops. of course, i could also always try to better myself in areas where i'm unfamiliar. but its late, and i'd rather go to bed.

but, one quick thing before i go. i wholeheartedly endorse lying to make people read classics. seriously, its just a reprint, as far as i know. i'd like like a motha' to get people to read dune.

peace,

ko

straight up thug life

maybe you are not aware, but D.C. can be a rough place. between the shoot outs with cops and the car fires one might think that you were in L.A. kicking it with the good dr, not the nation's beautiful capital. and i would forgive you for that, not everyone can handle the straight up thug life that exists in this area of the country. that being said, at least we don't live in arlington, that place is 'fo' real'.

now that your sarcasm meter is properly tuned... i give you something no one will be surprised at: a train wreck. in simpson character voice, 'most obvious article ever!'

i tend to listen to more mellow music than my contemporaries. it sometimes brings snide comments as it is not 'hip' or 'cool' or even 'manly'. i suppose i would acquiesce to the last descriptor, however i have never felt that my 'maleness' was tied to the things i listened too or the hobbies i enjoyed (although football is one of my deepest obsessions, that is 'manly' yes?). i play way too many 'nerdy' games to be worried about such stereotypes. with all this in mind, i would like to propose another option; most music played today just sounds bad, and here is the data to prove it. crushing, is it not?

finally, i love to watch movies but no one ever wants to see the movies i would like to devour. thankfully, the new york times has stepped in to help me find like-minded people, turns out i'm simply living on the wrong side of the city. who knew? and, what interesting inferences one can make about the demographics of each city based on the data.

also in simpson character voice, 'mmmmmmm, data' *drool*


peace,
ko

the robots are coming to control your brain

weather it is through controlling the air that you breathe (read: bernoulli's principle, damn fluid dynamics, always gave me problems...) or melting your mind by forcing you to sit in front of the stupid box (yay for those cool looking 3D glasses), the robots are here to control everything. even now they are working to replace the very parts of your weak, fleshy body (another cool thing developed at my workplace). who knows? maybe we've already reached that technological singularity. don't get me wrong, its not that i dislike robots, they help me do many things. like break other robotic type machines. mmm, breaking machines...

so far the coolest thing about google wave is the firefly/serenity references. maybe its because i don't have that many people to collaborate with (read: no friends), but so far i really don't get what all the hype is about. i suppose if i had a D&D group to play with, such a forum would be very useful. we could use it to fight illithid (read: Mind Flayer) in the deep, shadowy, secret places under the earth. that would be fun, about as fun as fighting the devil himself. until then, though, i think i will side with the drow and pound it out on the football field.

and speaking of that beautiful sport, the time of year has come where college students play to make millionaires more money (note: not the institutions they actually play for). its the time of year where we celebrate our Savior's birth and we will be retreating to the land of enchantment. hopefully the two feet of snow that buried our nation's capital doesn't follow us.

peace,
ko

crazy drivers

when i first moved to the DC area, i was blown away by the traffic. seriously, 4+ hours to travel 15 miles? however, after enough time and lots of hard lessons, i was able to learn the correct ways to transverse the diverse (you see what i did there?) pathways of the district. there is, however, one thing that i will never be able to get used to; car fires. we have a car on fire every day here in the district. an exaggeration you may think? hardly. let me give you two small examples to provide but a taste of the insanity that is driving here in our capital. it is something only delicious food can alleviate.

thankfully my wife is a crazy good cook. and by 'crazy good', i mean she is certifiably insane. behold, her entire weekend:

peace,

ko

you know what would be really cool?

If you could crash things for a living. Wait... no, if you could crash cars for a living! Wait, wait, wait, no... I got it, if you could crash HELICOPTERS for a living.

yep, that would be really cool. then you could be featured on sites such as engaget, popular science, redorbit and NASA. if only you could be that guy, like one of the guys seen in the video. that sure would be sweet.


peace,
ko

married games

the buckeyes beat michigan, won the big ten outright and are going to the rose bowl. the universe is in perfect harmony. time to look for other things besides football till january.

that's why friday night is going to be game night for chinh and i going forward. i'm not sure what games we will be playing, but hopefully none of them will be played in divorce mode. this is actually a small *cough* problem that i have; i'm incredibly competitive, and this competitiveness tends to make me hard to play with. this is especially true if you might be married to me, thus being forced to endure my unpredictable bouts of competitiveness. so... you know... watch out for that. on another note, we also have a fairly regular exercise routine that we are implementing soon. this is not in reaction to the things we might be eating, more because it feels like the right thing to do. well, i guess i lied a little, this way i get to eat more chipotle burritos. yum.

i often work with high speed cameras in my job and you can film some pretty cool stuff with technology these days. unfortunately, i wasn't smart enough to start my own television show or film the invisible forces of nature, but i'll keep working at it. if nothing else, i'm learning a lot of cool techniques while unlocking the secrets of the universe (read: simple physics, aka. engineering). maybe i could share my knowledge of physics with future presidents, being that i live so close to the whitehouse and all. till then, i'll keep finding approximate solutions to exact problems.

peace,
ko

so many video games...

xbox (aka. microsoft, aka. the evil empire) has found so many ways to extort more money from my pocket. from quests to defeat dragons to entertaining a crowded club, nothing is beyond their power. now, with the most recent update to xbox live, they are exerting their mighty power over your very procreation. what a crazy world we live in.

i have often thought about the problem of how to power a nation. while i think that water, wind and solar (heck, i came from new mexico) all have a place in the grid, there are probably some other options that will have to be considered. however, converting russian nukes to energy probably wasn't first on my list. that being said, i'll take the energy wherever i can get it, just find a place to dump it for the next million years (note: new mexico is off limits). truth be told, i don't know what the answer is, i just hope it turns out to be the right decision.

i'm full football mode now that its officially hate week. having lived in the state up north (and making some wonderful friends up there), i can say with no reservations that i hope we beat the crap out of michigan. o, and yay for the rose bowl.

peace,
ko

sickness

i have a cold and that is the suck. it is the suck in the sense that i almost never get sick, but when i do it is usually painful. plus, it gives my relatives an excuse to pick on my habits saying that those habits are the reason i'm sick while totally discounting the majority of time which i feel fine. awesome. even my boss is getting into the act which dissolved into the following link being sent. and, no, for those who are wondering i don't have a third nipple. anyway, this means that i will spend my day not watching the buckeyes (thanks big ten network) and looking at giant trees and lego kitchens.

npr is something i listen too every morning. i find it more intelligent (usually) than the other talk shows that are on, with reports such on everything from faith to ghosts. i don't mind that listening to such a station puts me into the 'old' category, generally its the only way that i get to hear the news, and news in such a way that someone isn't shouting at me. don't get me wrong, though, i am conservative. i just think the main thing holding back the conservative movement is the republican party and the far right.

but enough of my babbling, i just received windows 7 in the mail! time to update my machine, i've heard that this version is not 'the suck'.


peace,
ko

games

after a visit to our local lego store, i was once again bitten with the desire to collect a complete star wars army. it was a surreal experience in the sense that i saw the same (literally) toys i used to play with when i was a lad. and this experience teleported me to a different time, when i might imagine myself somewhere in the various stories that these wonderful tiny distractions would provide, living a 'normal life' in the sci-fi universe. i think this has given me a new idea when it comes to pumpkin carving this year.

fun. unlike some of the other sci fi distractions that have come out recently. well, maybe 'not fun' is a little strong, maybe 'price gouging' is a better way to describe it. i mean, there are much better things to spend your money on. geeze, i miss gaming.

finally, it is football season and that means my nights are pretty much shot, although i will be making a few exceptions. usually i like to watch the games at home where i can make a fool of myself and most people won't hear about it. recently, however, i've been looking for a local hangout to watch 'the game', mostly because the big ten network is 'the suck' and is not shown here on the east coast. hopefully, though, the rest of the dc metro area will not be subject to my groans.

peace,
ko

better visit while you can

we just got back from the motherland (fatherland?) and it seems that we visited it just in time. you see, there are certain parties that wish the lovely swiss alps would just disappear. what a crazy world we live in... of course, we were able to miss the painful loss that shouldn't have been which was also an added bonus and returned in time to see a much happier game. its a testament to how much i love football that i speak of it after such a trip. in all seriousness though, this was one of the best trips ever and i hope to post pictures soon. if you have a chance, you should visit too. one word of warning though, it is a bit expensive. if you live in the DC area, however, this is obviously not a problem.

we are looking to get a ps3, it being a great option if you want a blue ray player, not to mention being pretty popular now that it got cheaper and shed a few pounds. it might be a little much for us in the sense that we have a Wii, xbox 360, ps2, psp, 2x DS, 3x laptops, desktop... but, in our defense, there is no blue ray player in that list. plus, we would be able to play fat princess.

and, finally, i still think mark may is a moron.


peace,
ko

thinking about weddings or...

...how i learned to stop worrying and enjoy the ball and chain.

i wrote this a while ago, but never posted. please enjoy...

given that it is coming up on the second anniversary of my tricking my wife into saying 'i do' (and that we just recently got our wedding pictures), i have been thinking about weddings and such. maybe we should have had the wedding in albuquerque, it is after all the best place to live. or maybe we should have served some different food too our guests, i mean who doesn't like burgers and fries?

in the end, though, we had one kick a$$ wedding, and i wouldn't change a thing.

back to the present...

we have moved to a new state, a new set of jobs, a new adventure. that is part of the reason that i had not posted in so long. prior too and during the move, i oscillated between huge excitement and debilitating depression, partly because we were leaving such good friends and partly because i didn't really know what i was getting into. it is this fear of the unknown in every new situation, be it a new school or a new job that gives one pause and can destroy any good thing. fortunately, we are nothing but happy here. come visit, we'll show you.

my job is fun, rewarding and generally 'the awesome', read more about it here, chinh will find out more about her job in september. the one thing that is terrible here is the traffic. 45 min is a good commute here, and coming from a place where my work was 3 mi away that is a tough pill to swallow. that being the case, it certainly seems like there are more things to drive to.

o, and super grandmart is much better than h-mart.

i hope to post more in the future. till then...

peace,
ko

tiger resistant laptops

i have to get a new computer (laptop) for work, and i am lucky enough that it will be ordered for me. unfortunately, i immediately thought of my problems with various 'dell' s and begun to quake with fear. on the other hand, maybe i will get a tiger resistant laptop. either way, things could be a lot worse, i mean keanu reeves could be destroying one of my favorite series of all time. now that would be hard to live with...

in other news, my phone is 'the awesome'. "its just an iphone" you say, "you sound like a fan boy". well, does your phone have a super sweet HP calculator? i think not. i mean, if there is anything that will make my father love a phone, it is this app. though, to be honest, i do think that at&t is a pile of epic fail. its just that verizon would fail in so many more ways...

and, finally, i have built a new computer. it is also 'the awesome'. i will try to post pictures when we are settled in our new place.

o, you didn't know i was moving? you must not be part of the 'cool club'.


peace,
ko

ps. i should have built my computer like this... i am not as uber awesome as this...

pps. this is an awesome shirt and i think it sums up my general feeling about social networking sites

evidently everything's emerging

and the things that are coming to light are quite impressive indeed. i did not get to go to this year's elitist gathering of the electronic upper echelon (also known as E3), but i still wish to draw your attention to some of the more interesting reports that have come out recently.
first, for those who warhammer 40K means something, there is a new game that is coming out that takes a drastically different look at the warhammer universe. no longer are you controlling large companies of deadly troops, no sir. four will do just nicely.
second, i love rock band, and i have a turntable at home. logic says that the combination of the two will bring me joy unmatched. lets hope that such logic is sound.
third, for those who can't get enough halo, a pair of games to help further satiate your hunger. hopefully these will do better than the middling 'halo wars'.
fourth, and finally microsoft gets rid of something that was a bad idea from the start. so you want me to take my real money, exchange it for some exotic currency you have dreamed up and then give you that said exotic currency in return for a game? right...
fifth, another title from our friends at nintendo is trying to encourage us to use that lump of gray matter perched on top of our heads. next your going to tell me they want us to exercise these fragile husks, o wait...
sixth and lastly, i think i have touched on this before, but i think that a game where you are encouraged to live with your consequences is just awesome.

yay, all done.

peace,
ko

results

the results are in, and the long and short of it is that i achieved my desired time.1:45:02, which equates to an 8.02 per mile pace. i don't know if i could run it any faster if i wanted too, but we'll see. half marathons are much more reasonable to train for when compared to full marathons. in the end, i'm just glad that my timing chip worked because it didn't work for the detroit marathon and i had to get my results added by sending in pictures of me crossing the finish line.

other results are coming in as well. some are the result of someone accidentally posting something they shouldn't. let this be a lesson boys and girls, if you are working on a list of the u.s. nuclear sites don't post such information on the internet. people will find it. i guess this whole thing is a little interesting for me in the sense that i am fascinated by how much is recorded in this current time. i mean, a bridge can't even collapse or a plane land in a river without a couple of cameras pointed their way. i mean, what is facebook but a giant stalker organization? ok... maybe its not that sinister, but it certainly could be used as such. i know i don't have to go to any high school reunions any more...

finally, looks like the results are not quite in for FFXIV, but the 360 seems to have a fighting chance. too bad for sony...


peace,
ko

please read the reviews

before you buy anything. for instance, you could pass up this beauty on amazon thinking 'i don't need another wolf shirt', but if you read the reviews you could become better informed to the lurking awesomeness that lies within such a product. and, don't think that this thinking exists for awesome wolf shirts, at one point earlier this year most 'gamers' would have declared the death of the ps3 (yours truly included). this has been since soundly crushed by the current release of something infamous and the upcoming 'all grown up' game. that's right children, you have to read all the reviews in order to know what you are getting into.

in other news, it seems like i'm not the only one who thinks espn sucks. now, the new york post isn't what i would like to call an 'upstanding media organization', and has been known to sensationalize various articles. However, they are dead on when it comes to the article in question (of course this particular instance is the exception to the rule. that makes sense, right? ...).

i am working on a funny comic, but this week will be really busy. sunday i'm running for 13.1 miles. yes, it makes me nauseous too when i think of it.


peace,
ko

other words

another night slips away/ in other words, i should say/ there are other words, you should say/ there are other words...

a co-worker was let go the other day. this is neither a radical statement, in this day and age, nor is it necessarily an implication about the current state of the company i work for (since my co-worker was a temp.). that being said, it is interesting to see the reactions around the office, how certain conversations are missed, how there is an overall different 'tone'. one gets used to the idea of having people around and therefore we do not sometimes say the words we want to say. because, after all, there is always tomorrow, right? i guess not. i recently found out about this 'third place' that we sometimes create at work. needless to say, such changes in the landscape of people around us has a significant affect on said 'third place'.

at least my co-worker will no longer have to suffer through the michigan commute. i wish him all the best.

i want to say more, but tomorrow comes quickly over the horizon, and there is much still to do.

leave it for another day then, there will always be another day, another night... don't you think?

peace,
ko