Welcome to my nightmare

gadolinium chelate, Batman!

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:34:01 GMT

When I was having the MRI, I was given a consent form for contrast dye injection. I'm automatically wary of injections, being needle-phobic, but I was also curious. My understanding of how MRI works is that an intense magnetic field aligns the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, and then when they revert, they give off little bursts of radio waves at a specific frequency. By employing arrays of directional antennæ and applying the magnetic field in various patterns, the density of hydrogen atoms can be derived in a 3-D space. As different tissues have different densities of hydrogen, they can be differentiated. However, this is a nuclear effect, which does not depend on the electrons, so chemical reactions wouldn't show up (MRI used to be called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, but people are afraid of anything "nuclear", so they changed the name). I suppose X rays (and presumably therefore CT scans) depend on atomic nuclei instead of chemical bonds, but I really don't know. Other diagnostic techniques (stethoscopy, ultrasound, microscopy, whatever) are influenced by physical characteristics, and therefore electron shells and chemical bonds instead of atomic nuclei. Hence my curiosity about the contrast dye. I can't imagine a dye that changes the concentration of hydrogen nuclei in any useful way, so I wondered how it was supposed to work. The paperwork mentioned gadolinium, a fairly unusual element, so I figured that perhaps MRI machines could have antennæ for the frequency of a different nucleus (there are carbon-based MRI machines, so it's at least theoretically possible), and it could be hitched to a molecule that had an affinity for some sort of body structure of interest.

I was thinking in the right direction, but with woefully incomplete information.

It turns out that modern MRI machines detect different phases (known as T1 and T2) of the nuclei recovering from the magnetic fields, and those recovery profiles do depend on the chemical environment (for instance, hydrogen nuclei in water recover differently than those in fats). This information yields much more detailed information that just distribution of hydrogen density. And it turns out that gadolinium has a paramagnetic effect that also affects the T1 and T2 timings of nearby hydrogen nuclei. I'm familiar with magnetism and even diamagnetism, but I knew little about paramagnetism. There is a hilarious (but quite wrong) description of how it works by heating up in the magnetic field on this page of the normally informative about.com, which also includes incorrect details about NSF/NFD incidence (see below).

Gadolinium itself, while not radioactive, is highly toxic, so it is bound up ("chelated") in a large organic molecule that tends to collect in abnormal tissue, making such areas easy to pick out. The large odd molecule is rapidly removed from the bloodstream by the kidneys. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not well understood, people with renal issues can suffer a horrible, untreatable, irreversible, fatal side effect: Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis or Nephrogenic Fibrosing Dermopathy. Victims suffer hardened, thickened skin which impairs mobility, muscle pain, yellow growths on the eyes, and kidney failure. In a couple of cases, the symptoms were reversed by kidney transplant. As the evidence mounted, the FDA required the gadolinium contrast vendors to include a boxed warning on the label (the FDA's strongest warning), and issued severely worded instructions to avoid "off-label" use (it had been used in a Magnetic Resonance Angiography, even though this was not an approved use, and the dosage used is much higher than for MRI). For some sobering reading (including some impressively foreboding molecular diagrams), you can read the labels on the FDA's site. I just had a look, and the new labels explictly state "NOT FOR INTRATHECAL USE" (the aforementioned off-label MRA use). I wryly notice on The GE Healthcare site that they still claim "proven safe and effective" (along with a footnote that is never expanded).

As the disease can be caused by a single dose of gadolinium contrast dye, in a person with only slight renal insufficiency (I already have kidney issues), I will in the future not consent to use of this drug until and unless the mechanisms are understood and a demonstrated safe formulation (in my sole opinion) is employed. New (non-gadolinium based) contrast agents (such as MS-325 and Combidex) are under development.

New job!

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:15:04 GMT

Well, I've accepted a new job offer, from Vivísimo (AKA Clusty), a search engine firm. I'll be saying goodbye to FGM after over 9 years, but it's time for me to move on. I'll be moving from a services company to a products company, which should be interesting, and I'll be a jack of all trades, doing development, demos, customization, sales support, integration, whatever needs doing. They're based in Pittsburgh, but I'll be staying in the DC area, as they're growing their DC operations. I'll be working at home some, and at various sites around here. It seems like quite a cool outfit. When I went out to the corporate headquarters, their space reminded me of a cross between Google and the South Park animation studios. I've really liked all the people I've met, and they're really smart, on the ball people. The head of the company interviewed me on the roof, how cool is that? After some of his problem-solving interview questions, he said my ability to set up and do math in my head and get real numbers quickly, and my knowledge of physics were quite solid, but my grasp of geography is not so firm (I'd have to agree). They had pictures of one of their employees getting married on a mountaintop, there were a variety of different kinds of computers in evidence. I've worked with their product and quite like it, both from a configuration standpoint and as a user. Should be an interesting shift.

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:52:01 GMT

A little while back, I found myself unable to sleep, all too aware of an all-too-familiar pain. I put up with it for a while, but I was in bad shape and fizzygeek was worried. It sure seemed like that old bugaboo pancreatitis was back to plague me again. I figured that if I went to the ER, they'd just stick needles in me (I'm needlephobic, so I avoid this strenuously), and then just admit me for the usual regimen of bowel rest (no food or liquids) and painkillers. I figured I could manage bowel rest at home, and avoid the expense, bother, discomfort, needles, sleeplessness, and likely pneumonia associated with a hospital stay.

However, the pain continued to get worse until I decided that the possible dangers and discomfort outweighed my reluctance to deal with the ER. As per usual, we got to sit around and wait for quite some time, then get jabbed with needles and wait some more. The lab results told the story clearly enough: my serum lipase, with an expected range of 23-300 U/L, was 13951! That pretty much confirmed the physician's and my suspicions. So I got the usual dose of painkillers, a scrip for oral painkillers, and instructions for bowel rest and to see a local GI specialist. And they unplugged me and sent me home!

I didn't feel so hot, but much preferred being in my own bed with my own cats, able to get some decent sleep. The doctor I was told to see was out of town, so we tried calling another GI specialist I had seen and liked when I had been in the hospital with pancreatitis a few years ago. He wasn't available, but someone else at his practice was. My motivation to get to the bottom of this was renewed, as this episode was markedly worse than the previous ones. The doctor we saw agreed, and also was gung-ho to chase down the cause. He ordered an MRI and MRCP, so we went to the local imaging center to schedule an appointment. But there weren't any openings for several days!

At fizzygeek's urging, we went back to the ER to see if we could obtain imaging sooner that way. They jabbed me again, and I got a CT scan which showed (unsurprisingly) an inflamed pancreas. The lipase levels looked markedly improved. We got discharged again (whew) and went back home.

A few more pain-ridden days went by in a blur, then we went to get the MRI. I amused myself during the long, boring procedure by trying to guess when the magnet would buzz next so I wouldn't be breathing at that point (I was only coached briefly at the beginning), and trying to analyze the drive waveforms from the sounds they made. I never did figure out what the irregular loud pumping noise was, I'm guessing it's part of the magnet cooling system. I told them I'd want a copy of the results and they said I could drop by on Monday to pick up a CD.

A few more days go by, and I'm slowly trying clear liquids and then easy to digest foods. fizzygeek whomped up some rice cooked in chicken broth, which was filling and made me feel noticeably better. I did try going back to work on Monday (with fizzygeek driving), and things seemed to go okay. The next day, I drove myself, and swung by the MRI place to pick up my CD. The MRI desk was closed, so I went to the main desk, where they sent me back to Files. I suspect my CD was either forgotton or left at the MRI desk, because it seemed like they went and burned a CD for me while I waited.

We read the written report, which (unsurprisingly) gave a diagnosis of uncomplicated pancreatitis. The other study didn't produce results due to too much patient motion. I suppposed I guessed wrong as to when to hold my breath. Holding my breath for the entire 20-minute procedure is beyond even my abilities. I should probably go mention this to them, but I darkly suspect their control software decides on its own when to do scans, and doesn't give the operator any advance notice. Which is, of course, idiotic.

I didn't hear anything back from the doctor for a few days, so I called the practice, which has a fairly bewildering automated attendant. I finally navigated to the "talk to a nurse" option, which took a voice mail. That's when I discovered that the "doctor" I'd seen was actually a nurse practitioner. No matter, as long as I get a diagnosis. I tried viewing the CD, but the files were in a format I didn't recognize, along with some Windows-only software. More on this in another post.

I eventually got a call back from the doctor's office, saying the results don't show anything unexpected, other than a slight dilation of the gall bladder, and a mumbled suggestion that perhaps we might want to do some sort of additional gall bladder test, and that they'd be there all day the next day to take calls. I called back the next day, and was again greeted with the unhelpful automated attendant, and left another message inquiring about these gall bladder tests. I'm guessing that this is either an HRCP (whatever that is), an endometrial ultrasound (a fairly unpleasant procedure where they insert an ultrasound probe down the esophagus, through the stomach, and image the combined bile and pancreatic duct from the intestinal end), or another procedure where the gall bladder is induced to contract, and its ability to contract is measured (which can indicate the presence of fine sandlike gallstones).

The doctors really want the root cause to be gallstones. They've asked all the standard questions (I have zero risk factors for gallstones), and done the usual imaging (these gallstones, if they exist, are invisible to X rays, MRI, CT scans with and without contrast dye, and ultrasound). I can follow their logic, as the pancreas and gall bladder's efferent ducts merge into a shared opening into the intestines, and a blockage in this opening would tend to distend both organs, as we've observed. I'm not averse to having my gall bladder removed, if it would avoid further recurrence of the pancreatitis, but all the evidence available is circumstantial.

Artomatic lessons learned

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:33:00 GMT

While I have exhibited art before (I had a neon piece at Zenith Gallery years ago), Artomatic was a different experience, both by the nature of Artomatic (hardly a gallery show) and the hands-on pieces I decided to show.

Last year, Artomatic was in the office building next door to where I worked, so I went over nearly every day during lunch to poke around and admire things. I decided at that point that, being a non-juried show that anybody could enter, I wanted to give it a try. I poked around for several months, playing with oddments and ideas, but not really making much progress. Then I got the email for this year's show and realized I only had a few weeks to assemble some pieces if I was going to do it.

I had decided early on that I wanted to have interactive art, stuff people could play with which would react to them, as I wanted to do something different than the "it's too deep for you to understand, too expensive for you to touch" mindset. I had two main ideas, one would be a bustling assemblage of knobs, dials, meters, and lights, that would just sit there if nothing happened, but react jubilantly when people played with it. I considered a microphone or motion detector to kick-start the process. That piece proved to be a little ambitious, and ended up with a big analogue meter as the centerpiece, waving around according to its whims, and the meter illumination fading in and out. There was also a blinking light and a multi-segment fluorescent readout poking out the top. The controls ended up being a knob to turn and a button to push.

My other idea came from the confluence of finding an old microwave oven control panel in the back yard (complete with VFD clock readout) and Andrea's idea of a clock that kept blinking 12:00. I figured it could have a few buttons, and would react like a VCR clock, but with even less logic, and people could try to "set" it, but would be greeted with displays like ==:== or an upside-down 12:00 or "HELP". I did a lot of building on that one, but was thwarted by the complexity of driving a multiplexed VFD and it didn't make it.

As a last-minute addition, I bashed together a dekatron tube (a weird little gas tube that implements an entire 0-10 counter in a single part, quite useful until integrated circuits offered the same functionality in a smaller and cheaper package), along with a pair of buttons that controlled how fast it would spin, and in what direction. I had the idea at 10:30PM a few days before the show, and had it running and in an enclosure in about 90 minutes, a real quickie project.

I also pulled down some neon tubing I'd bent a while back for a map of the DC metro system. I didn't have the time to mount them all for a complete map, so I bashed out some enclosures and just mounted the blue, orange, and red lines. I figured the cheerful glowing neon would attract people to come look.

First, the things I think I got right. I had been sort of expecting space carved up into little offices like the 6th floor last year, but this show was in a brand spanking new building with nothing but big open spaces. I decided that since I had illuminated pieces, I wanted to be away from the windows. This worked out well, as there were little inset alcoves in the building core and I was able to get one as my space. As a lot of foot traffic just orbited the core, I got a lot of exposure. The bright neon also stood out nicely (a bunch of neon artists grouped together on another floor, but I think being separate helped me stand out). Choosing interactive pieces was popular, several people commented on liking that aspect. The comment book (a last minute addition so I could have some sort of feedback) worked out nicely. I even got a comment on the pencil holder (actually a green slime mug belonging to fizzygeek). The arcade-quality pushbuttons, designed for heavy use and abuse, stood up like champs. The Artomatic people also realized at the last minute that their power budget was strained, and instituted a 200-watt limit per space. Fortunately, I didn't have any high-wattage equipment (the electronic pieces were all running off tiny EnergyStar 5-watt power supplies).

Now for things I should have done differently. I should have had business cards printed with contact information. I had designed some, with a little mad scientist and circuitry logo, but didn't get them to a print shop in time. I should have made time to check up on things more often, to replenish the pencil supply, clean up loose papers (someone saw fit to tear out a bunch of pages in my comment book), and fix electronics. It turns out while the majority of people are reasonable and non-abusive, some people really felt the need to wrench the knobs around, unscrewing the control and twisting up the wires, yanking the knob off the shaft, and even breaking the knob. I'm planning on redesigning that control, replacing it with an endlessly-rotating encoder with no stops to push against. That way, there won't be a way to accumulate torque to loosen things.

I also needed to be clearer on what to expect. Many people seemed annoyed by the fact that it wasn't apparent to them what was going on. A lot of people assumed the controls would affect the neon in some way. I plan to have some simple writeups explaining that the pieces get "bored" and enjoy being stimulated. People who want to figure it out for themselves can just skip reading those signs. I also tried for a bit of subtlety by titling the neon Metro lines "red line", "orange line", so people could decide for themselves whether it was just some orange scrawl or representative of the Vienna-New Carrollton line. Apparently people prefer to be told this sort of thing.

I should also make the reactions of the pieces more dramatic. The usual setup was that if you poked the button several times, the pieces would get "excited" and flash more lights and higher readings. Then they'd slowly drift back down over a couple of minutes. But I need to make the reactions more immediate to just a little tweak. I may add sound too, for more immediate feedback.

The pieces were also a little too small and light to be pawed by lots of people. I found power connectors unscrewed, pieces shoved all over. I think next time I'll bolt the pieces directly to the shelves and run the power cords in from underneath. I had considered weighting the pieces, but ran out of time. Bolting them down will make the controls easier to operate and avoid letting people move the pieces or yank at the power connections.

My Pal Foot Foot!

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:17:02 GMT

The other day, I was musing on a song I'd heard once on Doctor Demento's show years ago. Advertised as a recording from 70,000BC by The Shaggs, the tune was My Pal Foot Foot. So I figured I'd see if this random bit of doggerel was available on the iTunes Music Store, which has quite a random collection, with many obvious things missing, but many oddballs present.

To my surprise, there were no fewer than three different versions of the Shaggs song, along with a cover version by another band (on a Shaggs tribute album whose existence boggles me).

There is truly some odd stuff out there.

Fridge woes

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:21:23 GMT

When fizzygeek got home, the food in the freezer wasn't frozen. A little telediagnosis (I was at Artomatic) indicated either the door hadn't sealed properly, or the thing was broken. Further discussion later indicated that it really looked broken.

So when I got home, fizzygeek started emptying it out. I stopped her and said it was probably worth doing a little testing to see if we could find out what was wrong, and if it could be patched enough to work until tomorrow.

A little investigation revealed that the compressor wasn't running. I decided this was either the compressor itself, the motor start capacitor, the compressor relay, or the control circuit. Accordingly, I hotwired the compressor relay. I figured I'd get either nothing at all (dead relay), a snap from the relay but nothing else (dead compressor or start capacitor) or the compressor would run (broken control circuit or wiring). Sure enough, the compressor sprang to life! So I left it running that way to cool down the contents (it would ignore the thermostat and try to max cool everything, but it should be fine for an hour or two starting from a warm fridge). Then I proceeded to do some research. The control board turns out to be a $91 part, and is famous for failing. There is a chance the problem is with the thermostat or other sensors, but the main board looks like the likely culprit.

So I yanked the main board and eyeballed it good. Sure enough, a bad solder joint on the compressor relay had burned through, as well as a 2Ω, 1 watt resistor looked a little cooked. Both of these failures are common to this board. I fired up the soldering iron and resoldered the relay with plenty of solder ("the bigger the blob, the better the job!"). I didn't have any 2Ω resistors, so I made one up of series-parallel combinations of 1Ω resistors (of which I had plenty), for a total dissipation of 2 watts.

I buttoned everything back up, pulled out the hotwire for the compressor and applied power. Voila, she runs! We lost a little ice cream, some time, and some emotional energy, but we're back on track with refrigerated goods!

Wait ... what?

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:59:56 GMT

I normally (on the advice of a lawyer) don't read software licenses. However, someone (who shall remain Anonymous) pointed out to me this amusing clause in Apple's iTunes license (§10, "Export Control"):

You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Buh?

Their comment: "Who knew it was even POSSIBLE to use iTunes wrong!?"

Once again, there goes my plausible deniability.

Photo Shoot Meme from Ymasen

madbodger@livejournal.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:02:46 GMT

Favorite food:
Least favorite food:
Favorite thing:
Least favorite thing:
Phobia:
An addiction:

Remember the "secret project"?

madbodger@livejournal.com — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:12:41 GMT

A long time ago, I referred to a secret project in response to deguspice's inquiry. Quite some time later, it has finally come to fruition! The first person to know about it was, of course, fizzygeek. The second person happened to be badmagic. Since then, beaq, vvalkyri, orkney, and the aforementioned deguspice (and presumably quietann) have heard about it.

So I now offer a URL, an image,

and this:

8 NE C-3

BTW, if people have wondered why I've been scarce lately, yes, this is part of the reason.

I guess that'll do

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:33:24 GMT

I was looking for some transistors to drive a dekatron, but I couldn't find any of my MPSA42, I was looking for. Howver, I did find several ZTX458, which should do the job. They even have a higher V_CEO of 400V, and the lower I_C of 300mA is plenty more than the 700µA I'll be using.

Dinner foo, Raleigh-Durham area

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:43:49 GMT

Hey, fizzygeek and I are in North Carolina for a charity event (bowling with race car drivers, what a concept!) and marq and golemkennels' housewarming party. However, between these, we'll be touring the botanical gardens tomorrow (Friday), and we're calling a foo at Crazy Fire (1270 Buck Jones Road in Raleigh) at 6PM for those locals who aren't otherwise busy (SCA, poly coffee, &c) and want to hang out with us.

memage

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:08:44 GMT

Mummers!

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:21:34 GMT

I was going to head up to Atlantic City with fizzygeek to see the Show of Shows (the Mummers string bands do extended version of their parade shows for charity). As we'd been in Florida for the parade, this was our chance to see some mummery live. The original plan was to head up Friday during the day, so we could dodge traffic and take advantage of the daylight. But the weather reports started to look foreboding, so we elected to head up Thursday night instead. Before we'd even gotten out of Virginia, snow started to come down, but it was fairly light, so after some discussion (and a quick meal for me), we decided to press on, figuring that if we couldn't make it all the way up, we could spend the night wherever we were and go the rest of the way the next day after the plows and salt trucks had done their work.

Happily, the weather pretty much dissipated fairly soon, and we were able to make fairly decent time. We jogged east on I-70, then up I-95. Unfortunately, there was road construction which closed all but one lane, which cost us quite a bit of time. And the weather worsened again. We continued on, at reduced speed. Eventually, we got to south Jersey and saw signs for Atlantic City. We followed them, only to find ourselves on a back road that looked like it might ice up any time. We did some pirouettes and got back on the Garden State Parkway, which looked like it had enough traffic and road treatmet to dispell the ice. A little after we took a better turnoff for AC, fizzygeek announced it was her turn for food. We saw one flashy diner, but didn't see how to get to it, but soon found another one, the Phily Diner (yes, just one L for some reason). It was actually a pretty nice joint (even the restrooms were pleasant). We again discussed spending the night. As we were near Barrington, I figured we could get some rest, go visit Edmund Scientific, then head for Atlantic City.

But we decided to continue onward, as we didn't have that far to go at that point. Calling the hotel let us know that the could put us up a night early, so we would have a place to stay, and wouldn't have to unpack and change hotels. The weather refused to co-operate, however, causing us to poke along pretty slowly. We were also getting tired, which caused some driver swaps, and some irksome misunderstandings on places to pull over to do so. Then we almost got sideswiped by some idiots blowing by at some insane speed, and apparently barely in control of their vehicle (they slewed off onto the shoulder for a while next). It looked like they spent an unusual amount of time at the toll gate, so hopefully the attendant noticed that they were drunk/high/crazy and did something about it.

That shook us both up, the weather was really deteriorating, but we were very nearly to the hotel by then, so we continued with extreme care. We finally got to the hotel, but the mumbling desk attendant had given up on us (it had been a while). Their computer was down, so it took a while to accomplish anything. She eventually found us a room, and we headed over there, but the door wouldn't accept our key. fizzygeek trudged back to the front desk, and eventually obtained another room (sure enough, the first room had already been occupied). So, at around 3:30AM, we could finally get some sleep in Somers Point, not far from Atlantic City. Unfortunately, the accumulating snow leaked through the roof and ceiling and started dripping on the floor, which made it difficult to sleep. Additionally, a friend I'd emailed about visiting on this trip called early that morning, which also cost us some sleep. We slept as best we could, and when it just wasn't working any more, fizzygeek had a long shower and called the front desk. I figured I'd have to take a quick shower and dress so we could let the maintenance people in, but it ended up being more brief than I planned for. It turns out the rooms have individual water heaters, and ours was already pretty much tapped out, so when the water started turning cold, I shut it off, finished washing, and rinsed with the lukewarm dregs. The maintenance people never turned up, and eventually the room we'd reserved became available.

We made a lazy day of it, as I had very little energy. We had a nice breakfast at the Point Diner, and did a little shopping. We found you could get some pretty good soft pretzels at the Acme, so we brought some back to the room to enjoy. We found a nice big garden center and had a nice time roaming around there. There was also a cute little bookstore where we found several fun books. There was one I almost bought about answers to kids' questions. I opened it at random, to a question as to where words for things (like "pencil") come from, and the answer was a really good one, explaining how people invent terms (like one family that referred to parmesian as "shake cheese") and some become widely adopted. We saw one book a friend would really enjoy, and picked up a copy for him. I burned through the $14 remaining balance in a gift card I'd gotten as a bonus from work, so the books seemed even cheaper.

Some research on the web revealed that Edmund Scientific, as I remembered it, was, alas, no more. The Barrington location was now Edmund Optics (a fine outfit, and the supplier for many of the parts for my homemade UV lense, but not the goofy surplus place it once was). The Edmund Scientific name had been absorbed by an education supply company based in New York. They sell a variety of interesting things, including an odd Egyptian style game based on lasers and mirrors, but were out of trivial visiting range.

Friday night, we decided to make use of the fireplace in our new room. The sign explained that it was not a wood burning fireplace, and only used special logs that could be purchased from the hotel. fizzygeek grumbled that they should just give us a log after the dripping water incident last night, but went to pick one up. We lit up the log, and curled up for a nice lazy evening, enjoying soft pretzels and reading. I had gotten fizzygeek a new camera as an early birthday gift, and she was playing with it, getting to know it, and charging its batteries. Then we heard heavy footsteps stomping up the stairs to the room overhead. With a surprising series of thuds and crunches, the people noisily installed themselves in the room directly above us. Then they began a sort of game that seemed to involve stomping across the floor at great speed and flinging themselves onto the bed, making the headboard rattle against the wall. And they had a lot of enthusiasm for their raucous fun, as well as apparently unlimited energy. After a few hours of this, desperately needing sleep, we called the front desk, and asked them to entreat the upstairs neighbors to knock it off. Which they did. For a while.

Early next morning, the booming and thudding recommenced, and we realized that more sleep was a lost cause. We packed up our stuff and headed out. Happily, the hotel management took pity on us (they intimated that they were convinced the people in the room above us had quite a few people in their room, and had instructed the housekeeping staff to keep an eye our for evidence of this), and comped us a free night, which was awfully nice of them, as our travails weren't really their fault.

Reaching Atlantic City, we found the parking garage for the event site was full (unsurprising, really), so we ended up parking at a neighboring casino and hoofing it. We had scored some truly excellent seats (on the secondary market, as we were buying them late in the game), and the show was a total blast. The music was good, the announcer (a 37 year veteran mummer) was on the ball (he got a special award), the shows were fantastic. We took lots of pictures (I was glad I'd gotten the 2GB memory card for the new camera, there were over 300 shots on that card alone). I even got to dance with a mummer. They were selling CDs and DVDs, so we picked 'em all up. One of the captains was retiring that year, and they gave him an incredible sendoff. Each band gets twice the amount of time they get for the parade, so it was quite the show, even without the comics and fancies (the string bands are our favourite part anyway). We may have seen mummergirl, but I doubt we'd be able to pick her out of a crowd, what with the costumes and makeup and everything. The show easily made up for all the trouble we'd had getting there.

After the show, we headed out to visit some NJ area friends (ghibli_geek and a couple of folks that don't have LJs that I know of). We had a fine time eating Lebanese food, playing with a Wii (that's one bizarre video game system, you can use it to do anything from get weather reports from Abu Dhabi to playing a bizarre game (Endless Oceans) where you get to be a hot chick diving around tickling fish and trying not to let another hot chick show you her encyclopedia. We also watched a documentary about caves that involved an amazing amount of sticky goo (they actually used the term "snot hammocks" at one point) and other disturbing things. And there was another fire, which is always nice.

Then we headed out to fizzygeek's old stomping grounds to spend the night. The internet at that hotel was broken, but what we really needed was sleep, so that was no big deal.

The next day, we called some more friends to see if they were up for a visit, but they wouldn't all be back home for a bit, so we did some shopping to obtain more soft pretzels (to take home and freeze), as well as some locally available yummies we'd been craving (Bachmann's for me, Zitner's for fizzygeek). Not much joy on the Zitner's, but a good haul for the others. We had a lovely visit, but I was hoping to see yet other friends before we headed home, so I called 'em up. Happily, they'd be thrilled to see us, so we headed that way. It turned out to be via US 1 through Philly, which isn't a wonderful road, but we made it there fine. It was a bit of a whirlwind, with three young children zipping about, but a nice friendly household, and they even fed us a good dinner. They asked the kids if they wanted shake cheese, and asked us if we'd heard of anyone else calling it shake cheese. Always amused at synchronicity (maugorn calls it "the cosmic joke"), I told 'em how I'd just read about that in a book the previous day!

The trip back home, thankfully, was unremarkable (aside from one lout who tried to merge into us at Whitemarsh), and we arrived home to kitties that were quite glad to see us.

I was gonna post this with pictures, but time flies by, so fizzygeek or I will probably make a picture post later.

Grrr! (no Terminator)

madbodger@livejournal.com — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:13:07 GMT

Due to the continued incompetence of ~~Mid-Atlantic Cablevision~~ ~~CableVision of Loudoun~~ ~~Adelphia~~ Comcast, I was able to record 0 out of 120 minutes of the season finalé of Terminator. Anybody have a copy I can borrow?

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:20:47 GMT

<Don LaFontaine>
Academy award winner Morgan Freeman reprising his role as God.

Academy award winner Samuel L. Jackson as the devil.

Academy Lifetime Achievement award winner Peter O'Toole as Daniel Webster.

Academy Award winner Abigail Breslin as the littlest dragon

and Best Actress Scarlett Johansson as the flying killer robot.

Chaos.

Love.

Intrigue!

Hilarious hijinks!

Coming soon to a theatre near you.
</Don LaFontaine>

lunar eclipse

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:24:43 GMT

Taking a page from shadowcaptain, I too tried photographing the lunar eclipse. I went with the 500mm ƒ/8 Nikkor mirror lense, which is essentially tantamount to bolting a small reflector telescope to the front of a camera (Fuji Finepix S3 Pro, in this case). I added a tripod and cable release.

Totality. I'm not exactly sure what the black blotch is, I'm assuming either cruft on the sensor or maybe a falling leaf.

Focussing was tricky at that angle, but I had it closer than it looks here. However, my lightweight tripod was giving me some mirror shake over the 2-second exposures I was using. The above image is a plane going by, and the mirror shake is obvious. I need to learn how to lock up the mirror in this camera.

Geekery saves the day

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:05:21 GMT

Once upon a time, the government had a custom document storage and retrieval system built. They used it for a while, and then they boxed it up and put it in storage. Years went by. Then the government realized they needed those old documents. The people who had worked for the system had all left, and the company that wrote the software was no longer in business. So they handed the system off to a data recovery team, who worked on it for 18 months, to no avail.

Luckily, someone on the project ran in to someone who'd heard stories about me. Arrangements were made, and I was sent to where the system was waiting in boxes. In a single afternoon, I reassembled and configured the system, derived the necessary passwords, and got the software running and retrieving documents.

euphemisms

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:24:16 GMT

I've noticed an increasing trend toward using euphemisms in advertising. Sometimes, I can kind of see their point, such as referring to used cars as "pre-owned". A fairly awkward construction, actually, but "used cars" has such pejorative associations that they're pretty motivated to avoid using that phrase. I still think they could have done better than "pre-pwned". Yep, every time I see the term, I read it as "pre-pwned". It's fairly accurate, makes me smile instead of grimace, and robs their silly euphemism of its advantages. I think everybody should do this.

Worse is the nearly universal trend among realtors of referring to houses as "homes". Sorry, you chiselers, you can't sell "homes". A home is made by the people living there, and cannot be sold without invoking images of slavery I'm sure you would prefer to avoid. A house is a building, an object you can buy and sell. So when someone tells me they're selling "homes", I feel like I'm being lied to, just so they can use a cozier (but inaccurate) term. I'm unwilling to buy the most expensive thing I'm likely ever to buy from someone that I feel is lying to me.

Stoopid marketeers

madbodger@livejournal.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:01:38 GMT

I participate in online marketing surveys with a few companies, mostly to let corporate America know what I want them to do. I also get a few bucks and the odd bonus or two.

Today, I got one from a third-party outfit (Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates Inc.). I followed the links and was told

We have detected that you are using a MacOS operating system .
In order to continue with this survey please use the following operating systems(s)
Window

We have detetected that you are using a SAFARI 5.0 .
In order to continue with this survey please use the following browser(s)
IE,
Firefox

This seemed silly, I'm not about to change operating systems to take a survey! I'm doing you a favour, you nitwits! But I was willing to try another browser (as long as it's not IE), so I fired up Firefox, only to get the "please use Window[sic]" message again.

Dream on, you wretched stinking ugly bags of mostly water.

I continued reading email, until I got to one of the Russian UBE I get for some reason I can only guess at. This one had the usual Cyrillic with lots of exclamation points, but embedded in that was the eye-catching phrase

ORANGE woman BOOM

I'm not sure what to make of that one. I tried feeding it to Sherlock, resulting in amusing but unenlightening tidbits such as: "Down the smallness of city!", "In you nervous tick with the sound of telephone call begins!", and "For the desperate: bath with the brooms from the snowdrops and the song of March tomcats."

Um, whatever.

I passed my IQ test!

madbodger@livejournal.com — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:21:04 GMT

Yeah, I know, IQ tests aren't generally regarded as pass/fail. I found one on a website that looked fun, and ran through it. Pretty standard stuff, lots of math, spatial reasoning, sequences, and the dreaded analogies†. No big deal, and I'm good at finding "bypasses".

But then it insisted I join one of those scams where you have to participate in a (frequently unstated or misrepresented) number of "offers" in order to win a "free" laptop, iPod, or (in this case) the score.

I closed the browser window.

I've seen a variety of come-ons to those kinds of things, but this was a new one to me. I suspect it nabs a lot of people, because once they've invested time in taking the test (looks like the generic emode one, BTW), they want some return, and their curiosity is piqued. However, while curiosity is a powerful motivator for me, it was easily balanced by my enormous inherent skepticism (online IQ tests are no bastions of reliability), the fact that I already have a good idea of my IQ, I don't have any particular need to have my intelligence externally validated*, and I have a fairly low opinion of IQ scores as a metric of useful intelligence, anyway.

† These and the "which one is not like the others" questions can be an exercise in mind-reading for creative types.
* My ego is self-supporting.

madbodger@livejournal.com — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:16:50 GMT

We got a package from Japan today:

A centipede kit, a Stirling engine kit, and a gramophone kit! The centipede kit, reviewed here, is a doozy. That's the one that got us in the mood to order stuff. I've ordered stuff from HobbyLink Japan before, and was pleased with their prices and service. They had the Centipede kit for ¥7,600 which was pretty attractive. But, perusing the site, I found a Stirling cycle car kit, and I've always wanted one of these little widgets, but they were too expensive, but this one was only ¥9,334, so that got put on the order as well. And the phonograph kit was not only nifty, it both records and plays back! And it does so on ordinary cheap plastic cups (no expensive and/or unobtainable consumables to buy!). And for ¥2,839, irresistable.

I hadn't seen the Gakken kits before, so I didn't really know what to expect, other than what Dan had stated on his review. So I had a look in the Sterling engine box:

Every single part rested in its own little niche in the custom-formed plastic holder. There's a nice thick manual, and tools are included! Then I realized that was just the first layer:

Underneath a cardboard separator were even more parts, all gleaming and neatly packed, nothing loose to get away. The attention to detail is just amazing, even the little screws, springs, and fasteners are neatly laid out, each in their own little plastic bubble:

I haven't even put it together, and I'm utterly thrilled with it. A thing of beauty.

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:32:04 GMT

While reading a book on Perl, I realized something about ForTran. Of course, I may be wrong, but I think I'm right. In ForTran, a statement like this is valid:

4 = 3

After executing that statement if you use 4 for something, it has the value of 3. People explained this to me, with much giggling, saying ForTran would let you change the value of 4. I now suspect this isn't strictly true (for one thing, 41 still has the expected value). I think this is just an instance of ForTran's habit of creating variables whenever something is referenced as a variable. If you call COLOR(MAGENT) by mistake when trying to set the color to magenta, and your program doesn't have a variable named MAGENT, ForTran will helpfully create a variable by that name, and initialize it to zero for you. A variant of that happened to me once while programming a Silicon Graphics machine, due to the fact that some of the code had been compiled on a version of ForTran that truncated variable names to six characters. As zero equated to black, my lovely double-buffered rotating 3-D Gouraud shaded figures were completely invisible.

But I digress.

What's really happening in the 4 = 3 statement is that ForTran sees me using the symbol 4 as a variable. It obediently creates a variable named "4" and assigns it a value of 3. Then, when you refer to 4, you get that variable, which shadows the original integer 4.

When I was little, my mom (who was a math teacher) instilled in me the differences between numbers, digits, and chalk dust. These differences are subtle but real, and occasionally come up and bite the unwary. When I got into typography, and added concepts of letters, characters, and glyphs, they fit right into the pantheon.

"Name a game you can play in bed"

madbodger@livejournal.com — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:12:28 GMT

20 seconds, SFW, with sound (which you want).

The power of mockery

madbodger@livejournal.com — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:55:51 GMT

Reading Sinfest, it occurred to me that one of my favourite tools for dealing with annoying people is mockery. It makes me happy and them look ridiculous. Then I wondered what would happen if everybody took advantage of this marvellous tool. Simple: we'd all be both happy and ridiculous.

I can live with that.

Well, that was weird.

madbodger@livejournal.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:57:36 GMT

It started small. I noticed a dead ladybug on the vanity. I probably should have disposed of it, but I felt bad for it. I'm a big softie. I looked at it every day, a little sadly. One day, I noticed that it had moved. No big deal, probably I bumped it, or one of the cats did or somesuch. The next day, it was standing. Granted, this doesn't look a lot different, but it was off the ground. I figured maybe the muscles were contracting as they dried or some such.

Then it disappeared. But I found it (or another one) nearby a couple of days later. Intrigued, I had a closer look. And ... it was moving.

Must be a different one. I don't think of myself as a racist, but a lot of ladybugs look alike to me.

A while later, I was driving home late at night and heard a buzzing in the car when I was nearly home. Afraid it was a stinging insect, I drove home quickly and ran out of the car. The next day, I found a beautiful but very dead dragonfly upside down on my dash. I felt really bad about that, as I was directly responsible for its passing. I sniffled a bit, then gingerly put it on a bush.

When I came home, it was still there, it had fallen a little but I could see it in the half-light. I waved at it unhappily, and it kicked a bit. As I watched, astonished, it climbed back out of the bush and flew off into the night!

Obviously, I had misjudged something, but it shook me up.

A few days later, I arrived home to find the triumphant cat crowing about a dead baby snake. I felt horrible for the poor little snake, which never had a chance. It was lying there with its tongue lolling out, looking as pathetic as something could look. I gingerly took it outside, to lay it to rest in the little copse of trees out back. I put it down, and it slithered away! Must have just been stunned.

Then I heard rustling in the leaves. I figured I had disturbed something, but then realized I had disturbed several somethings. I ran off, fearing a passel of vindictive snakes, and looked back from near the house. I caught twin glows reflected from the streetlight behind me. They were bobbing and approaching me. I didn't know what it was, and was plenty worried when it greeted me "mrow?". Then, sidling up to me, I recognized the cat I had buried years before.

Then I heard a shriek from inside the house. fizzygeek came out, obviously overwhelmed, holding something in her arms.

"What?", I asked, terrified and hopeful at the same time, every nerve on edge.

"Have a look," she answered, her eyes shining.