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September 30, 2004
Comic Book Thursday
Today, we find Han Solo defending himself in The Emperor's Court against accusations that he killed Greedo in cold blood. Han Solo has a history of shooting first. How will the Emperor rule?
Next, The Avengers team up for a a new, original adventure which took a significantly less amount of artistic talent than drawing an actual comic.
On a more serious comic-book note, let me make a plug for Supreme Power, whose first issues are now available in trade paperback form. Also, issue #13 comes out this week. Definitely, definitely worth reading.
Posted by Dean at 3:30 PM | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
For Computer Geeks Only
I've had a problem with my computer at work that has been vexing me for quite a while. On my Redhat-based Linux machine in my office, I have been intermittently unable to install software for months using Redhat's RPM package-management software. Rebooting occasionally helped, so I wasn't totally paralyzed. It turns out that this is a problem that has confronted many others, as well. Interestingly, I never started running into this problem until a few months ago, and I've been using variants of Redhat for years.
The short solution is this:
lsof /var/lib/rpm/Packages # see which processes are currently using the RPM Package database kill -9 <pid> # kill those processes rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db* # delete any open/corrupt databases rpm -vv --rebuilddb # rebuild the database in verbose mode
Posted by Dean at 11:53 AM | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Experiments with Crowds
Lately I've been trying to come up with a simple way of inferring crowd size using simple electronic sensors. While sitting around in a lab meeting, we came up with the brilliant idea that since some people have Bluetooth-enabled cell-phones or PDAs, then one could come to the conclusion that the more Bluetooth devices that you detect, the more people there are. In fact, in England, "toothing" is a popular (if unwholesome) means of finding random people to talk with, because in a crowd of people on a train, one can usually depend on finding some with a bluetooth-enabled device to communicate with.
So, lugging my trusty laptop and a serial-to-bluetooth device on loan from my lab, I decided to go to every single Starbucks that I saw on my way through Manhattan. As you might imagine, in a city as dense as New York, there are quite a few branches of Starbucks. This gave me a dependable pool of establishments with a similar layout and a clientele representing a consistent demographic.
What did I learn? First, I learned that there aren't any branches of Starbucks on 6th Avenue between Greenwich Village and Chelsea. The other thing I learned was that hardly anyone has a Bluetooth-enabled cell-phone, these days. Seriously. I detected only 2 Bluetooth-devices the whole day, both of which I was only able to detect once, briefly-- I assume because they belonged to people walking by outside the Starbucks, rather than inside the coffeeshop. So, back to the drawing board when it comes to inferring crowd size.
I also learned that while Starbucks' coffee might be awful, their tea is pretty good.
More detailed results (yes, I was able to make some rather subtle conclusions) will follow, soon.
Posted by Dean at 10:43 AM | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
Guide to salutations
I came across this in the comments section of a post on Languagehat about morphology. Apparently the plural of mademoiselle is mesdemoiselles. The plural of madam is mesdames. This is the reason that, for salutations, the plural of both "Miss" and "Mrs." is "Mmes." However, (and I hadn't seen this one before), the plural of "Ms." is "Mses." or "Mss."
Similarly, the reason that the plural of "Mr." is "Messrs." is because the latter is an abbreviation for Messieurs.
I just felt the need to write all of that down, somewhere, because otherwise I'd forget it.
Posted by Dean at 11:31 PM | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
A Mess in Davis Square
While heading back to my office from Davis Square at 4:20 this afternoon, a number of fire engines, sirens blaring, converged on Holland St. When I got down to the T station, I observed eight firefighters using what appeared to be a coat hanger to try to free someone trapped in the elevator.
Posted by Dean at 4:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Visit to Brooklyn Superhero Supply
After my previous visit to 826 Valencia and its Pirate Supply Store, I decided to check out a similar establishment that has arrived in New York City, 826NYC and its Super Hero Supply Store. I have to say that pirates are better served by the retail establishment in San Francisco than superheroes are being served in New York City. I did pick up the latest issue of The Believer magazine, though.
I also recommend the utility belts and grappling hooks. Before buying supplies, you might want to read the guide on How to Be a Superhero. (read some online excerpts)
Continue reading "A Visit to Brooklyn Superhero Supply"
Posted by Dean at 1:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
The New England Pop Music Festival
I managed to catch day 1 of The New England Pop Music Festival, which was being held at The Abbey Lounge, one of Somerville's better dives. The Abbey Lounge seems to have gone through a fair number of renovations over the past several months, and it is still a run-down dive-- which is just how we like it, anyway.
Robin Lane, who was apparently talented enough to appear on a vocal duet on Neil Young's "Round & Round" for his Everybody Knows This is Nowhere album in 1969, does not do well as an angry woman folk-singer. Girl On Top was not so bad, though the lead singer's determination to rock started to brush up into Spinal Tap territory.
Posted by Dean at 5:30 PM
September 8, 2004
Being 30, day 2
Okay, it's not so bad, so far. I went to work and had a perfectly normal day. No one except one of the commenters in yesterday's entry reminded me that I'm old. Also, since my birthday, no one has asked me how old I am, so I think this might play I role in the fact that I'm handling this relatively well. As long as it doesn't "hit me" a few months from now, I think I'll be doing ok.
I'm thinking of buying up some music made up of albums released entirely since my birthday. Amazon has listings of this week's music releases that I will be browsing through over the next few days... I could throw a "post-30 music" theme-party.
Posted by Dean at 11:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 7, 2004
How did this happen?
I woke up this morning, and it turns out that I'm 30. Well, good riddance to my 20s, anyway.
Here are some things to expect after turning 30. And that is the only link I'm going to dedicate to turning 30. There are plenty more out there, but I'd rather not dwell on them.
I haven't spent the last year worrying about turning 30, and that's probably for the best. It's also registration day at MIT, which will hopefully be my last... surely the end of grad school is just around the corner. Of course, had you asked me two years ago, I would have told you that my goal was to finish graduate school before turning 30. The fact that I can see the end in sight is something I can regard as "close enough," however.
Meanwhile, thanks, Mom and Babá, for putting up with me for 30 whole years.
Posted by Dean at 9:10 AM | TrackBack
September 1, 2004
What a great time to promote one's book
On Monday I visited the Housing Works Used Book Cafe in New York City to see John Powers talk about his book Sore Winners. As I've just made it past the first chapter, I can't comment on the book itself, but John Powers was an interesting guy. He's self aware enough to realize that his book is currently being buried by an avalanche of anti-Bush literature, right now, and he's attempting to differentiate himself from the pack by doing a cultural analysis of Bush supporters, a la David Brooks (but better, we hope).
On another note, the bookstore itself is great, having a good selection of inexpensive books and records (!).
Those in New York City can find the entire schedule of various events related to the convention (and related to opposition to the convention) can check out The People's Guide to the Republican National Convention.