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Consider that house music functions like a carrier wave, driving a trance state, a fugue state for the audience. As is the natural ebb and flow of the human condition, so must the carrier wave be also. For each Shakra of the human, so a resonant frequency must be, such that it excites and drives a person.
I work here in a converted barn type building in Chester Springs. It's nice, but we're moving soon alas into the thronging King of Prussia. I thought that before we departed I would take some pictures of the nice place where I've been working for over a year now. It's not often that I work at a place longer than a year, so I guess I must like it! :)
In disturbing news
Mar. 17th, 2009 09:38 pmAfter a somewhat heated exchange on another livejournal, I thought I would take a minute to do some research as I am sometimes want to do.
I have often heard bandied around the idea that some wacko catholic priest/cardinal/bishop person claimed that condoms leak HIV.
I thought that it probably wasn't the official position of the church, and that it was false.
I went to my favourite catholic resource, vatican.va, and there was the report, loud and clear.
Folks. The government funded a study at UCLA: http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/1989/LT890904.html which, if I read correctly, found that 4 of 31 brands of condom leaks HIV.
Some types of Trojans were in that list.
The crazy cardinal wasn't so crazy.
OMG.
I have often heard bandied around the idea that some wacko catholic priest/cardinal/bishop person claimed that condoms leak HIV.
I thought that it probably wasn't the official position of the church, and that it was false.
I went to my favourite catholic resource, vatican.va, and there was the report, loud and clear.
Folks. The government funded a study at UCLA: http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/1989/LT890904.html which, if I read correctly, found that 4 of 31 brands of condom leaks HIV.
Some types of Trojans were in that list.
The crazy cardinal wasn't so crazy.
OMG.
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I've never had a particularly awful job. The worst job I had though was working for Royal Mail in the UK. I answered the phone and gave out postcodes for addresses. This doesn't sound too terrible, and it wasn't, but there were mitigating factors. The computers we had to do the lookups on were horribly old and slow, and we were being judged on how many calls we could answer in a day, even though that was as much a factor of how fast our computer was as of how fast we were. At the start of the period of working there, we were not told that we were being monitored for speed. Then half way through we were told, at which point they told us they would publish the figures, but then they didn't, so I never found out how I was doing. Add to that that the workstations would have failed health and safety if anyone would have bothered to check such things. The screens were too high and didn't adjust, the chairs were awful, and it made for an uncomfortable day. Add to that the fact that the office didn't have any air conditioning either and this was in high summer, and it got pretty hot. We were required to wear a suit and tie too.
That might not have been the worst day. The worst day was when I was a removal man. We were moving a large three bedroom house from one side of Cambridge to the other. We started at 08:00 and were expected to be completely moved by the end of the day. We had three guys and one panel truck the size of a medium sized U-Haul. The host family had not packed at all. It was horrible. We didn't get done till 3:00am, and the guy had the nerve to tip us just 5GBP each. I woke up the next day stiff as a board, and didn't get up till 12:00.
Then there was the employer who deducted my child support from my pay check, but didn't send it in to the state, and I got hauled up in court for it.
I've never had a particularly awful job. The worst job I had though was working for Royal Mail in the UK. I answered the phone and gave out postcodes for addresses. This doesn't sound too terrible, and it wasn't, but there were mitigating factors. The computers we had to do the lookups on were horribly old and slow, and we were being judged on how many calls we could answer in a day, even though that was as much a factor of how fast our computer was as of how fast we were. At the start of the period of working there, we were not told that we were being monitored for speed. Then half way through we were told, at which point they told us they would publish the figures, but then they didn't, so I never found out how I was doing. Add to that that the workstations would have failed health and safety if anyone would have bothered to check such things. The screens were too high and didn't adjust, the chairs were awful, and it made for an uncomfortable day. Add to that the fact that the office didn't have any air conditioning either and this was in high summer, and it got pretty hot. We were required to wear a suit and tie too.
That might not have been the worst day. The worst day was when I was a removal man. We were moving a large three bedroom house from one side of Cambridge to the other. We started at 08:00 and were expected to be completely moved by the end of the day. We had three guys and one panel truck the size of a medium sized U-Haul. The host family had not packed at all. It was horrible. We didn't get done till 3:00am, and the guy had the nerve to tip us just 5GBP each. I woke up the next day stiff as a board, and didn't get up till 12:00.
Then there was the employer who deducted my child support from my pay check, but didn't send it in to the state, and I got hauled up in court for it.
Bewick's Wren
Mar. 12th, 2009 12:04 pmIt appears that after some poking around after a suggestion by [Bad username or site: neopolaris'/ @ livejournal.com] it appears that the bird I photographed may well be a Bewick's Wren. This is particularly interesting as theoretically based on information on whatbird.com, it's way out of it's back yard. They are endangered in Maryland, and they aren't supposed to come as far east as Pennsylvania, so I may have caught quite a rare occurrence. I wonder if there aren't some ornithologists out there that would be very interested to know about it, but I really don't know where to go to find out.
Today's Photograph
Mar. 11th, 2009 02:50 pmI wandered around the park again for a bit today. Managed to get a distance picture of a what looks to me like a wren:
Not much other than that - got a couple of flying crows, but I keep forgetting to do basic things like setting up my exposure compensation when taking a picture of such a dark bird, so it's basically a blurry silhouette against the sky, so it looks pretty crappy.
Not much other than that - got a couple of flying crows, but I keep forgetting to do basic things like setting up my exposure compensation when taking a picture of such a dark bird, so it's basically a blurry silhouette against the sky, so it looks pretty crappy.
The most Awesome SQL
Mar. 4th, 2009 12:38 amIf you can even figure out how this works, Kudos. I'm pretty proud I figured out how to make this. There might be better ways, but this way works, and gets me what I need:
select * from task x, (select p.project_id, u.workflow_id, (select min(due_date) as min_due_date from task t where t.workflow_id=u.workflow_id) as min_due_date from task u, workflow p where u.workflow_id=p.workflow_id group by u.workflow_id, p.project_id) y where x.due_date=y.min_due_date and x.workflow_id=y.workflow_id;
Muhahahaha.
select * from task x, (select p.project_id, u.workflow_id, (select min(due_date) as min_due_date from task t where t.workflow_id=u.workflow_id) as min_due_date from task u, workflow p where u.workflow_id=p.workflow_id group by u.workflow_id, p.project_id) y where x.due_date=y.min_due_date and x.workflow_id=y.workflow_id;
Muhahahaha.
Painting etc
Feb. 27th, 2009 10:41 amPainted the bedroom ceiling last night. I think the lie down I had earlier in the evening helped. I just sort of came home from work, ordered dinner, and then crashed out for about an hour.
Now we only have three walls with two coats left to go before we will be done!
Then our new bed will arrive. W00t.
You can't have 'Painting' without 'Pain'
Now we only have three walls with two coats left to go before we will be done!
Then our new bed will arrive. W00t.
You can't have 'Painting' without 'Pain'
Holy Flaming Logos Batman
Feb. 27th, 2009 12:17 amI thought that, as an evolved species, we had grown out of the adolescent internet years and solidly put the days of the flaming logo behind us. Today I was disturbed to find this:
On the AT&T website next to an iPhone.
A flaming logo.
Steve Jobs is probably having a fit.
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On the AT&T website next to an iPhone.
A flaming logo.
Steve Jobs is probably having a fit.
Things you can do in MySQL
Feb. 23rd, 2009 03:45 pmWhy can't I do this?
update sp_college_game n set n.game_status_ev_id=6 where n.college_game_id in (select a.college_game_id from sp_college_game a, sp_college_playoff_entry b where a.college_game_id = b.game_id)
It's not that hard! Oracle will let me do that, and so will PostgreSQL, but MySQL is too crap.
Did I mention that you have to a stupid idiot to walk outside to talk on your cell phone with nothing more than a long sleeve T-Shirt on! It's frikin cold!
update sp_college_game n set n.game_status_ev_id=6 where n.college_game_id in (select a.college_game_id from sp_college_game a, sp_college_playoff_entry b where a.college_game_id = b.game_id)
It's not that hard! Oracle will let me do that, and so will PostgreSQL, but MySQL is too crap.
Did I mention that you have to a stupid idiot to walk outside to talk on your cell phone with nothing more than a long sleeve T-Shirt on! It's frikin cold!
Reasons not to use PHP
Feb. 20th, 2009 03:32 pmFrom the PHP homepage:
This means that even if you used magic_quotes_gpc, which is evil anyway, but necessary for MySQL (reasons not to use MySQL and PHP), you would have been open to an injection attack, and that values that had single quotes in them like O'Reilly would have broken your site.
Can anyone say regression tests?
PHP - Not enterprise software.
PHP 5.2.7 has been removed from distribution
[07-Dec-2008]
Due to a security bug found in the PHP 5.2.7 release, it has been removed from distribution. The bug affects configurations where magic_quotes_gpc is enabled, because it remains off even when set to on. In the meantime, use PHP 5.2.6 until PHP 5.2.8 is later released.
This means that even if you used magic_quotes_gpc, which is evil anyway, but necessary for MySQL (reasons not to use MySQL and PHP), you would have been open to an injection attack, and that values that had single quotes in them like O'Reilly would have broken your site.
Can anyone say regression tests?
PHP - Not enterprise software.
Writer's Block: Jackpot
Feb. 19th, 2009 11:18 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
Pay off my debt. Pay off any debt that Fin/Marn/Xugglybug have. Put money aside for College for Riordon. Found a college that has high quality education at an affordable price that has no fricking sports teams, or stadiums to waste the students parents hard earned money on.
Pay off my debt. Pay off any debt that Fin/Marn/Xugglybug have. Put money aside for College for Riordon. Found a college that has high quality education at an affordable price that has no fricking sports teams, or stadiums to waste the students parents hard earned money on.
I got only a solitary good picture today. The lake was quiet, so I wandered back behind the lake to the picnic area. Managed to hear a woodpecker in the tree, and got a couple of shots, of which only one really turned out worth anything.
Photography
Feb. 14th, 2009 05:34 pmToday is Saturday, which means I get to go out during the day and take pictures anywhere I want, well, within reason (Phipps conservatory in Pittsburgh is on my list, but that's a weekend, not a lunch-time jaunt). Based on reading I did, I decided to mount the 100-400mm directly on my camera without the extender, which is supposed to improve picture quality, and also means I get auto-focus back.
It was a good call. Today's pictures I think turned out better than almost anything else I've taken. I noticed right away looking through the lens that colours seemed brighter and the picture seemed very sharp. On these pictures, I hardly did any colour modification at all in Aperture. All I really did was crop, and occasionally sharpen.
It was a good call. Today's pictures I think turned out better than almost anything else I've taken. I noticed right away looking through the lens that colours seemed brighter and the picture seemed very sharp. On these pictures, I hardly did any colour modification at all in Aperture. All I really did was crop, and occasionally sharpen.
Birds on my walk today
Feb. 13th, 2009 01:32 pmToday I wandered off to Marsh Creek again in hopes of having more luck that Tuesday.
I got a few shots of birds that I'm thinking are maybe crows on the ice, none really turned out thogh, and I thought I was pretty much done. I started packing up, and as I had just closed the trunk, two crows flew over and landed on top of the building next to me. I was dumbfounded. I stood there looking at them for a minute and wondered if I should get my camera out, if they would hang around for long enough. I dithered about it, and the flew off and landed on the ice, at a good range. I quickly got my camera together again and as I looked up they were flying off to the right. It didn't seem as if they flew far so I hurried around the other side of the building, and found the birds wheeling and dancing over the ice a bit far away, but as I was watching, they started flying in front of the building, and I managed to catch a few shots of both a couple of gulls and a couple of crows (I'm sure someone will correct me here). They weren't the best shots ever, but they might be my best shots ever.
I don't know how to figure out how to get sharper pictures though. I'm not sure it was camera shake, as some of them were as high as 1/2000th of a second. I think they just weren't quite in focus. Because of my lens not being the high end f2.8 lens, the camera turns off auto-focus when you slap on the 2x converter, so it was hand-held manual focus all the way. Given that, I'm not too unhappy. I've only had the lens a few days, and I'm still not used to zooming and focusing and taking pictures all in one go yet.
Pictures of birds flying about Marsh Creek
I got a few shots of birds that I'm thinking are maybe crows on the ice, none really turned out thogh, and I thought I was pretty much done. I started packing up, and as I had just closed the trunk, two crows flew over and landed on top of the building next to me. I was dumbfounded. I stood there looking at them for a minute and wondered if I should get my camera out, if they would hang around for long enough. I dithered about it, and the flew off and landed on the ice, at a good range. I quickly got my camera together again and as I looked up they were flying off to the right. It didn't seem as if they flew far so I hurried around the other side of the building, and found the birds wheeling and dancing over the ice a bit far away, but as I was watching, they started flying in front of the building, and I managed to catch a few shots of both a couple of gulls and a couple of crows (I'm sure someone will correct me here). They weren't the best shots ever, but they might be my best shots ever.
I don't know how to figure out how to get sharper pictures though. I'm not sure it was camera shake, as some of them were as high as 1/2000th of a second. I think they just weren't quite in focus. Because of my lens not being the high end f2.8 lens, the camera turns off auto-focus when you slap on the 2x converter, so it was hand-held manual focus all the way. Given that, I'm not too unhappy. I've only had the lens a few days, and I'm still not used to zooming and focusing and taking pictures all in one go yet.
Pictures of birds flying about Marsh Creek
