Matrix Pothole August 25, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, gnash-teeth , 1 comment so far
I bring this up because it’s been annoying me for the better part of a week. Recently someone claimed that the window between one world and another in the 1999 movie The Matrix, as it relates to Thomas Anderson/Neo, is when he is taken into the Nebuchadnezzar, after being awakened and flushed from his vat. It is possible that I have misunderstood what was being communicated, however I don’t think that was the case.
It is a well known that the point where Thomas Anderson/Neo actually enters the “real world” in his vat of jello is this scene from the script.
It is here where the camera follows the liquid mirror down his throat, this dark passageway. Next we see Neo awaken in his vat. Another website has a similar statement.
Call it whatever you want - the passageway, the doorway, the window, the porthole, cat door, et al. It is there and not elsewhere that the viewer and Neo go into the real world. QED.
The Road To Texas - Going Home August 21, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : PRWeb, Squirrels, gnash-teeth, Castle, Travel , 3commentsMy visit to Texas was hopefully one of my last. I’ve got another one coming up and I’m preparing myself mentally for the ordeal. We traveled from Dallas to Austin, including such fine luxury locations in-between as Waco, Arlington, and a few others I’ve been fortunate enough to forget. I should mention that our route was not direct and included an out of the way trip to meet a very nice couple who shared their home and hospitality. That strawberry short cake was the best I’ve had.
At 103 degrees upon landing and nothing but barren land, with the exception of what the natives call “Hill Country”, I didn’t see much of anything to make me want to come back. We didn’t spend anytime in the cities with the exception of a few restaurants and a local shop in Austin. It was 106 at this point, the streets were littered with debris and a bum was sleeping next to our car. In fact there appeared to be quite a few homeless people. I’m sure people from Texas, or those who love Texas are thinking that I just didn’t get to the good parts and that may be true, but I can only report on my experiences.
In fact the pinnacle of the trip came on day three as we made the four hour trek back to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We met two complete mental cases at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. This lady who worked there kept 
trying to sell us a gigantic lock-blade knife, stating that it was on sale for $20 - today only. Tomorrow the price would be $19.95 plus tax. While I’m sure those who lived in the area would jump on such a fine savings, I repeated for the zillionth time that while I was very interested in the fine items she had for sale, including the $39.95 junior Samarai set, carefully arranged above the domestic beer display. The TSA and Homeland Security have violated my constitutional rights to carry an obscenely large and profanely engraved melee weapon aboard a domestic flight.
Todd was foolish enough to humour the femaloid and handled the blade, to which I informed him it was most likely a murder weapon which now bears his prints. Another patron came in and while I was hiding behind the chip display overheard her telling this newcomer how the UFO’s kept moving things at night. She recently tested her theory the night before by making careful note of where she had placed an item, only to have it moved by morning. As the patron made his frantic escape, she called out after him asking if he wanted “the spirit to touch him”.
The only thing that comes to mind which can best describe the feeling of the location, the people, the very vibe of the place is if you have watched Rob Zombies movie House of 1,000 Corpses. I kid you not I thought it was about to get really weird.
The reason I went to Texas is another matter. I’m reserving judgement on that until after my next trip in a week or so. I will say that it was a pleasant structure I was at, which just happened to be in the wrong part of the country. It would have been more ideal in the Northwest.
Road To Texas - Cavity Search August 20, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : PRWeb , add a commentAgain David and I almost miss our flight, this time the security have an extra ad hoc security screening of boarding passengers at the gate. They’re searching for anything the X-ray screeners missed. David gets detained and searched for attempting to transport a .25 ounce of sealed strawberry-terrorist yogurt.
I of course am laughing at which point David suggests to the screeners that I should be cavity searched. Fortunately our screeners had a sense of humor and only give my bags a half hearted search.
I give the screeners Todds description and let them know in all seriousness, he has yogurt stuffed into body cavities. He’s in-line somewhere behind us, I hope he makes it through.
The Road To Texas August 18, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : PRWeb, Squirrels, gnash-teeth, Insider, Castle, Travel , add a comment
The road to Texas started at the unholy hour of 3am when my alarm went off. I had to triple check my baggage to make sure that I’m not carrying anything from the Terrorist cookbook. Like whitening toothpaste, ocean breeze scented deodorant, and my Cool Water cologne. As I pull out of my driveway I mentally reviewed my packing, after about 3 blocks I realize that I’ve forgotten to put in any underwear. The important thing to note here is I actually debated if I really needed them. Not that I was planning on going commando - I don’t think the Texans would notice anyways - I just figured I could stop and buy some when we landed.
The practicality of making it to a mini-mall to grab some boxers didn’t seem good. And whats worse is the guys I’m traveling with being such good natured folk, would probably chip in and lend me tighty-whities, to which I would of course have to refuse, but doing so is a delicate matter. So despite being extremely tired and running late, I turn around and run inside to grab a handful of what I hope, are clean underpants.
I arrive at the office and meet David where we have brief discussion as to whether having the deodorant I’m wearing would subject me to an extra search. And if so, would they use a butter knife or one of those weird Kentucky Fried Chicken Sporks to scrape the deodorant from my underarms. I was running on little sleep and David hadn’t slept at all, so we really don’t try to tackle the theorization any further than that. I should also note that the picture to the left is a good representation to how I’m feeling right now. It’s taken in the Alaska Airlines Executive Suite where they have proper - free Internet access.
It’s been about an hour since we’ve seen Todd. I wonder if he made it past the butter knives.
My Hog August 18, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Segway , add a comment
Ah the day has come. Well it came early this week, but I’ve been too swamped to actually blog about it. The Segway formerly known as ‘The Segway David McInnis Owns’ as mentioned in my Segway Disclaimer, has now changed hands. I’m the proud new owner of a slightly beaten Segway i180, technically the old model, but still a very cool piece of hardware. My first order of Segway business will be to take the unit home and begin exploring my home town of Lynden on it. I would have done it this weekend, but alas I’m traveling to the great state of Texas.
Fortunately the unit became available after David purchased the newest and freshly released i2 Commuter, which I must confess has a cooler look and some features that make me a bit jealous. For example, when he powers up the unit via the “key” which is really the detachable odometer, speedometer, and radio frequency ignition, it makes this cool electronic escalating hum. The front of the i2 also has what looks, at least to me, like a mini main deflector dish from Star Trek, or perhaps the front of a jet engine. Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of that on the Segway site. The unit is a flat black which reminds me with all its led lights and smooth curves of the car Kit from KnightRider.
It also drives significantly different from the i180 - which I’m quite proficient on making me appreciate my new i180 that much more.
Find The Lines August 14, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff , add a commentWhen using vim in a huge configuration file like main.cf or httpd.conf - to jump past the commented lines without scrolling you can do a search for any line that doesn’t start with #
/^[^#]
Hit n to cycle through them.
I suppose matching lines that don’t start with whitespace might work too.
/^[^#|\s]
Rosey August 13, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Segway, Science , 1 comment so far
Slap on an outer shell for this thing from Carnegie Mellon and it could pass for the housemaid Rosey from the Jetsons cartoon. Although, it looks like Rosey may have had multiple wheels, never the less this is a pretty cool implementation of alternative robotic mobility.
The gist being that their robot balances and moves by using a single ball, sorta like a ball point pen. They claim this allows the robot to take up less space and allow for greater freedom of movement and speed. The release states, “Because it is omnidirectional, it can move easily in any direction without having to turn first.” Apparently it still has three legs which it uses to stay upright when it’s not actually in motion.
For me I’d like to have a robot that has the option to go on legs for rugged terrain and on a wheel or wheels for speed and elegance. Of course while I’m wishing for magickal ponies, my bot would have it’s own AI and double as my mech suit.
Another balancing robotic system, this one using two wheels has been out for quite awhile from the good folks at Segway, which have the Robotic Mobility Platform. It has to turn first, but is also probably ready to go for commercial applications. Ooow. Looks like Segway has some other items I haven’t spotted before here.
WildBlue August 13, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff , add a commentMy parents live way, way, way out past Acme,WA two houses down from Mordor. They have dial up, and a refurbished 2Ghz PC that I put together for them. It takes my Mom half and hour to load a page with a picture of the grandkids. There’s no hope of ever getting broadband out there, or so I thought. I recently heard on the radio a plug for a company called WildBlue, which is Internet over satellite and claims to have about 1.5Mbs download speeds or the equivalent of a T1 line. The cost is comparative to ordering Comcast Internet which is rant unto itself, that I will save for latter.
I think my folks may be moving so I might never get a chance to try it, but I’m curious to hear any feedback about the service.
Pretty Feeds August 13, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff, PRWeb, Web Design & Dev , add a commentIt’s still a work in progress, but last week I quietly made some alterations to a few hundred thousand PRWeb RSS 2.0 feeds. I added in an XML StyleSheet (XSL). Which basically renders the feed with some HTML if users try to view the feed via a web browser which supports XSL ( IE and Firefox ), Safari for OSX seems to refuse and renders feeds in their own way regardless of the wishes of the feed creator.
This modification provides a message for customers that do not understand what they’ve clicked on, or what an RSS feed is. Users can also add that feed easily to their Google, Yahoo, or MSN news readers via standard looking chicklets. It needs some cleanup, and a few things need to be expanded, but it should provides some assistance to the new user or PRWeb and RSS in general.
News readers/aggregators should process the feed as normal ignoring the stylesheet.
Google Meatforge August 13, 2006
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff , add a commentI’m cruising about online minding my own business when one of my search results takes me to Google Code. I seem to recall something like that where they have their API’s listed. The page I’m on though is for a hosted project, hence the name of this blog post. Seems to be something along the lines of Freshmeat and Sourceforge. Looks like you can get a project page, source control hosting via what appears to be Subversion and a bug tracking system as well. Some Google specific items seem to include the use of labels and integration into Google Groups. Additionally and a bit of an annoyance is that there are no tarballs to download, you seem to have to use subversion to get any code. This is probably old news, but I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about previously.
Alternative titles included Meatforgle, GoogleForge, ForgeGoEat.
