a full and fascinating life

Macbook IO Benchmark

2009-06-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

External RAID5 Enclosure:
Oyen Digital RS-M4QO
4x Seagate ST31500341AS Barracuda 7200.11

External SSD:
Oyen Digital EB2-S
1x Intel X25-M SSD

XBench Results

Conclusions:

eSATA is ~50% faster than FW800 for large block size reads and writes on RAID5, and large block size reads on the SSD. It's worth picking up an eSATA card if you want peak performance from fast external storage.

A consumer-grade 4-disk RAID5 array can hold its own against an SSD for sequential access, but is much slower for random access. It's worth making your boot drive an SSD, but not worth paying for an SSD for (say) video editing.

If you RAID your SSDs, you have too much money.

GoogleServe - Science is Fun IV

2009-06-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, 60 Google employees volunteer to help RAFT package science kits for schools. RAFT is Resource Area for Teachers, a Silicon Valley non-profit that provides K-12 teachers with materials to teach math, science, art, and technology in fun and creative ways.

Star Trail Time Lapse

2009-05-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

I started with this picture, taken two weeks ago:

I loved the colors, but obviously should have been standing in a better place. I went back a few nights ago, and grabbed this much cleaner shot of the same ride, this time from the other side:

Then I decided to set up a time lapse of 13 second exposures, every 20 seconds, so that I could watch the stars move. I managed to snag only 43 frames before boardwalk security found us, and kicked us out. And fog rolled in, right in the middle. But the video drips with potential, and makes me want to go back and get kicked out a few more times:

I also want to tear down the metal guard rail around the ride. :(

Coastal Wandering

2009-05-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

Big Basin Hike

2009-04-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Cloudy San Gregorio

2009-04-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

I made a new friend this weekend.

Coyote Point

2009-04-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Satuday at Shoreline Kite Park and Coyote Point, then an indulgent dinner at The Melting Pot.

Harbin

2009-04-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

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Celebrated the end of 2009Q1 by driving to Harbin with Kemi. People at Kiva continually mention how nice it is, and I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint. We enjoyed the hot tubs, steam room and massages, and then admired the spectacular mountain scenery for a while. I hope to go back in the very near future for camping.

power kiting: ur doing it wrong

2009-03-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

I bought a 2-meter quad-line power kite, to practice for kite surfing. I didn't do enough research before taking it to the park, and my typical learn-by-experimentation strategy failed me. I ruined my lines so badly that I had to throw them away. Replacements will arrive in a couple weeks.

I learned:

Bring kite stakes (or tent stakes), particularly when you are flying alone.
Tying knots on unsheathed spectra lines causes them to break. Don't do that.
Replacement lines cost $80.

tarte tatin: take 4

2009-03-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

She made tomato soup. I made dessert. While these simmered we opened my most fragrant bottle of olive oil, added fresh-cracked black pepper, and snacked on sourdough and brie.

My fourth attempt at tarte tatin was much more successful than the last three:

zoom-zoom

2009-03-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon, I didn't suck at go-karts:

Monza Hot Laps (2nd)

Monza Qualifying (1st)

Monza Race (1st)

Yokohama Hot Laps (1st)

shooting with Kemi

2009-03-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Spent part of Saturday at a shooting range with Kemi, firing 300-400 rounds with her 22. It was my first time firing anything bigger than a BB gun, but it seems I'm a decent shot.

From fuzzblog

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economic crisis for dummies

2009-03-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Three episodes of This American Life, spaced 4-5 months apart, attempt to distill the economic crisis in layman's terms.

2008-05-09: The Giant Pool of Money

2008-10-03: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

2009-02-27: Bad Bank

Go-Kart Offsite

2009-03-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

A work-sponsored recreational event. I've been burning the candle at both ends for a few weeks, in order to meet an ambitious deadline. I desperately needed this chance to blow steam. That the offsite occurred the day of my deadline was sheer coincidence. Serendipity at work.

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For fun, I recorded a trail of my races with the "My Tracks" feature on my Android G1. The indoor GPS resolution was too poor for an accurate map, but did produce an impressive squiggle.

Things the Grandchildren Should Know

2009-02-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I started reading Things the Grandchildren Should Know, Mark Oliver Everett's autobiography. I finished it this afternoon. Enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoy his music. Well played, sir!

panic subsides

2009-02-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

From Alice at the Beach

Today I was kicked out of a large gravel parking lot. I was playing with my STI, practicing racing starts, doing donuts, and trying to burn up the clutch, tires, and brakes. Pushing the limits of the car was very educational. I intentionally spun out, finally developing a mental model of the effects of turning the wheel in the direction of the skid. I produced mighty clouds of dust, leaving wide dual arcs in the gravel, and attracting the odd glance from distant passers-by. After 20 minutes, a Mountain View park services worker drove toward me in his pickup truck. I rolled down my dust-caked window and greeted him. He politely informed me that the lot wasn't big enough for this sort of activity, and that I had to stop. (In my defense, the lot was enormous.) When I suggested that I was merely learning how to drive, he gave me the most incredulous look. I quickly corrected myself, stating that I was trying to learn "sport driving." Nonplussed, he informed me that the lot was private property. I asked if he knew any better places to practice. Sadly, he didn't. I thanked him, careful to call him "sir," then drove home.

Afterward, it occurred to me that I was not in the least bit nervous, panicked or scared. Not when my car was careening wildly out of control, and not when the figure of authority approached the scene of my transgression.

I think the medication is working.

painful no longer

2009-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

While cleaning out my closet today, I opened a box labeled "painful memories." It contained memories from high school that hurt to remember, but were too important to forget. Their lesson: "Never again." Looking through the box, while contemplating a temporary relocation to the fireplace, I found that the pain wasn't what it once was. I emptied both the "painful memories" box and the "memories" box, and with a brief game of real-life tetris placed the combined contents into their new wooden home. I shut the lid securely, then nestled the new posh box deep into my closet.

Painful memories no longer--just memories.

The Crisis of Credit

2009-02-20T04:10:00.000-08:00

Full Moon Craft Night

2009-02-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

A Hedwig Valentine

2009-02-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

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Celebrated Valentine's Day with Kemi by going to a screening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Victoria theater. The show was hosted by John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote the screenplay and starred as Hedwig. He told funny stories and sang a few songs from the show. The audience adored him. (Not surprising--the man is beautiful, and his work is incredibly touching.) I may have been the only straight person in the whole theater. On the bright side, I was pleased to discover that gay men don't pee on toilet seats.

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After some difficulty extracting my car from the parking garage, we visited Mel's Drive-in for a snack on the way home. I love diners and their comfort-food. My current favorites are grilled cheese with tomato and avacado, and eggs benedict for breakfast. Sadly, diners are rare in the bay area.

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Lots of driving. My car is at nearly 9500 miles, four months after buying it. I see my car's mileage as a proxy metric for measuring how much "living" I'm doing. Each mile represents a date, a dinner, a vacation, a walk on the beach, a photo session, a party, or some other activity that gives meaning to my life. From 2003 to 2008, I put 30,000 miles on my Elantra, averaging less than 7000 miles each year (much less than the national average). I was sick, both physically and mentally, and as a result, I didn't "live" much. Last year, my health any my life improved substantially. At the rate I'm going, I'll have nearly 30,000 miles on the new car by the end of the first year of ownership. By this metric, I'm "living" about four times as much / as fast / better than I did between 2003 and 2008. Worth the carbon emissions, I think.

Kemi's Graduation

2009-02-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

full and rewarding day

2009-02-08T01:28:00.000-08:00

A morning date in Santa Cruz. Breakfast at the Saturn Cafe, followed by hottubs, sauna, and massage at Kiva.

An evening dinner in Yountville with Kemi, to celebrate her imminent graduation. (In the bay, adding "PhD" to your name doubles your sex-appeal.) We ate at Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc. It feels so wrong to get a same-day reservation for a Keller restaurant. The fixed menu is perfect for my unrefined palette, and the casual dress is just my speed. First course was empanadas, second was wagyu beef with potatoes and cauliflower, then a cheese course with MouCo Colorouge and marinated olives, and finally a dessert of lemon bars and biscotti. And a bottle blanc de blanc, since Kemi wanted something bubbly.

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I made it back home, one energy drink later, at 12:30AM, feeling totally and utterly spent. To explain my fatigue, I plugged my route into Google Maps. I drove 280 miles today, with an estimated 6 hours on the road. If I had been driving in one direction, I could have made it all the way to Los Angeles. At my STI's 20 miles/gallon, that's a full tank of gas. (I burn the gas your Prius saves.) I justify my environmental impact (poorly) by remembering being sick, and driving less than 7000 miles/year for 5 years. I lost so many years to illness, but I make up for it by living more and better today. If miles driven is any indication, I'm "living" about four times as much as I did in any previous year. Four times as many trips, dinners, vacations, parties, dates, and walks on the beach. Four times as much life. Worth the carbon, I think.

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a blissful weekend

2009-01-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

Drove down Route 1, Saturday morning, to spend a weekend in Monterey Bay with someone special. We stopped in Moss Landing, near Castroville, for deep-fried artichokes.

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After arriving in Monterey, we ditched the car at the hotel, then explored Cannery Row in the unseasonably warm weather. We soaked up sun, wandered beaches, snapped pictures, and took the obligatory aquarium tour. We grabbed a snack at a cafe, eventually meandering back to the hotel for check-in.

Bad experiences with two-star and four-star lodging had left me with a distaste for hotels in general. A particularly pleasant experience with a three-star near Phoenix made me realize that, as usual, I was doing it wrong. There's a happy medium between the Holiday Inn and the Westin, filled with reasonably-priced mom-and-pop outfits and cute bed-and-breakfasts that are much more my speed. On this trip, the Monterey Bay Inn did not disappoint.

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Our "park view" room did indeed overlook a park, but a partial ocean view came along for free. We watched the sunset warm the ocean with fiery hues until our bellies began to rumble.

Lack of planning led to a hungry and hurried walk through the downtown streets, searching for a restaurant with a reasonable vegetarian menu. After a few false starts, we finally stumbled upon the Paradiso Trattoria. Its vegetarian entrees included something called "polenta tower." We decided to give it a try.

Wine was great. Food was great. Service was excellent. The bill was reasonable. Serendipity made poor planning seem like genius. We ate and talked for hours, then wandered back to the hotel, to soak in a hottub under the stars.

Win.

da Vinci was a perv

2009-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

We shall discuss here the nature of the screw and of its lever, and how it [the screw] shall be used for lifting rather than for thrusting; and how it has more power when it is simple and not double, and thin rather than quick, when moved by a lever of the same length and force. We shall briefly discuss the many ways there are to use screws, the various types of endless [i.e. worm] screws, ... how the endless screw shall be combined with toothed wheels ... We shall examine the nature of their nuts ... We shall also speak of inverted screws and screws that by a single motion thrust and pull a weight, and screws which, by turning them only once, will rotate the nuts more than once. ... Their method of construction will also be discussed, how to put them to work ...

Leonardo da Vinci's introduction to the "Book of the elements of machines" (Trattato degli elementi macchinali, Madrid Ms. I, fol. 82r).

Apparently our new president has a very active sex-life.

2009-01-22T22:12:00.000-08:00