September 2007 Archives

99% Cocoa chocolate bar link via

Amazon's mechanical Turk + Google's Earth = find Steve Fossett link via

B-Boy cupcakes link via

The bacon tomb, one year later link via

The future of genetic modifications link via

The Spark™ Talking Bug Identifier is an innovative, parent participation-based system of science products designed to inspire kids to discover for themselves link via

Firefighters Lift a Car Using their Hoses link via

Burningman settlers link via

Couple divorce after online affair with each other link via

Casio's 300 fps camera link via

Climbing Fargo street 92 times is the equivalent of 14,000 feet in only 15 miles or so link via

Free skull font link via

Frozen images link via

8848 - 1.86 link via

12 essential facts, formulas, and photographic rules link via

Tracking the life of a vending machine link via

Ship abanoned in a desert link via

robots.txt Adventure link via

Plants chat over their own network link via

The public has spoken link via

Slither link1 link2 via

Today, we had a new guy, Dan, join us who I know from work. He did pretty good for a beginner. His side arm throw is better than mine. And he actually sank a long putt on hole seven.

Afterwards, we ate at Mangia Pizza because they have an outdoor seating area which allows dogs. John grabbed Loco! out of his car. Too bad it was a little too breezy for this card game.

Gravitt was abnormally missing today at Wilco. Which may explain why I was throwing good today. Hole number 3 has a tough first throw. And I made it into the green around the corner. My third throw landed next to the basket making this an easy par.

Holes 5 and 8 were easy birdies as well.

Ugh! My allergies have started to act up and it sucks. I wish plants would stop having sex all over me. I wonder if this is one of the culprits...

Age of Steam Italy

Just me and the Grimms tonight. The group seems to be on its last gasp. But at least it is still breathing meaty air. I don't usually listen to podcasts. But I sat through the The MetaGamer's podcast which was on Age of Steam. And that put me in the mood...

Supposedly, this map is balanced for three players. But I think we played the game wrong. Doug and I were competing while Jon was left alone. Another clue was that we never used any of the supplementary track tiles which came with the game. So I think the goal was to get as convoluted as possible. And we didn't deliver as much black goods (giving negative points) either... Perhaps another replay is in order.

The cafeteria is a rip-off. They charge $2.12 for a bottle of Sobe Life Water. H.E.B. is a little better at $1.29. But Sam's Club has them all beat at $0.845. Don't you think that a dollar markup over the grocery store's already marked up price to be a little high?

The start for today was rather brutal for John. He whacked his hand on a metal pole and caused the disc to fly off course. Where we lost it in the trees. And that was not the only disc that we lost. I lost two. And John lost three. But we came back after the first round was over and were able to spot the disc high in the trees!

The tournament took forever. The biggest problem was that it was played over two courses that were miles apart. We were forced to wait for everyone to comeback from Kyle. Finally, at 3:30 we headed out for the second round.

I kept remarking how it had not rained yet. And the fact that this was the first tournament that I have ever played where it has not rained. But fate would continue along in its footsteps and sprinkle a little bit on us. We were lucky. It rained much harder in San Marcos where we had just left.

Ugh. The tournament took forever to finish. We finally left for home at 8pm...

John and I drove down to San Marcos to check out one of the two courses where the Bobcat Open was being held. There was a map, but it was for an old layout. John and I kind of wandered around and made some holes up. But we eventually found some disc golfers and followed them to figure out the course.

Hole 9 was interesting. It was a short hole on top of a small hill where you had to throw over cars parked for some construction work towards the basket. You cannot overthrow it because some buildings line the surrounding area. I landed close enough for a birdie.

Most of the baskets were older models that were not too visible. However, one seemed rather home made but functional.

Fjords

The mourning for Franz-Benno Delonge continued tonight with this two player game. I like it. It is a combination of Carcassonne and Go. Probably not so much like Go. But after the board has been created, you do need to carefully consider how to expand your territory such that you get more than your opponent. Mike didn't have a chance.

Manilla

Next up was a betting game some what like craps. Well, like craps in the sense that you are placing pieces that are bets of probabilities. For example, the bet that all three ships make it into port is less likely than the bet that at least one will make it. So the payouts are higher for the riskier bets. And how can you not like the pirate bet where if the ship lands on the 13th spot, then you get a big reward. Which Jon took advantage of twice (and pretty much gave him the game).

Phoenicia

Next up was another three player game of Phoenicia. I tried to go after cloth-making. And once again I hurt myself on a fort purchase during the first turn. Another thing that hurt me was the poor distribution of cards. Besides my first 6, I kept drawing 4s and 5s for money. And the cloth house came out late.

When it did, I did not expect Chapel to overbid on it. It was completely useless to him as he went for advanced mining. That move decided the game right then and there. I was in last place and Jon was in first. Jon was clearly making more money than Mike. But Mike wanted to play it out to the end. Not that it made a difference.

The sushi group went to Maru. A new sushi restaurant near Central Market. It was not bad. The decor was lacking. But the food was decent. Sadly, it is a little too far for lunch and Ichiban is still number one for lunch-time sushi.

I notice my camera freaks people out. At least slightly. And I don't blame them. It is rather large and intimidating.... like Dan Becker's head...

A couple of the 42 players talk about finessing. And I wonder just how often you are able to finesse in 42. After all, there are only seven tricks in the round. And the "cards" in your hand are members of two suits. Usually, the focus in this game is to take the point bones (3:2, 4:1, 5:0, 5:5, and 6:4). However, there are times where you are "booked" and points do not matter. You must take all of the remaining tricks.

It seems to me that the finesse in 42 is an all or nothing proposition. Definitely when you are "booked." But also when the opposing team is looking for opportunities to dump points onto a loosing trick. You do not normally want to loose control of what is led since you often have losers that you might be forced to play.

Whereas, it might not be that case in bridge. With so many more cards, I think all might not be lost if your finesse fails. You can try some other strategy. Or am I wrong?

Another quick blow-out. The first hand was the always amusing equal score. On the second hand, my first eight cards contained the Dragon, Phoenix, Ace, and Ace, so I called Grand Tichu. I had no trouble making it and John played an eight bomb to go out second. And that was not the end of the bombs, either. Traci's Ace bomb made her Tichu call successful. I also had a Jack bomb to help go out second for another one of our one-twos.

Afterwards, John showed us his new cart that he bought for disc golf. It should be able to hold his rather large bag and a cooler for drinks. What disc golf accessories are left for him to buy?

Hrm. It seems that the local movie theater has new hours on the weekends and is opening up later. WTF is up with that? Don't they want to make money?

And that was not the only change. They changed the GUI on the ticket ordering kiosk. (Don't you love how the refresh lines are caught by the camera?). And they changed the layout of the actual ticket. I wonder if this theater was bought out?

3 Canon 1DMkIIIs record Bond's #756 @ 30 frames per second link via

A wedding proposal, built around an elaborate gallery opening link via

POV photography link via

The world's smallest park link via

Cappuccino coast link via

Everything I want to do is illegal link via

The most successful pirate of all time controlled a fleet of more than 1,500 ships and upwards of 80,000 sailors -- and was a woman link via

Analytics according to Captain Kirk link via

Survival of the fittest M&M link via

The trouble with tribbles: A television adaptation by Edward Gorey link via

Secret breathalyzer software finally revealed link via

Relief map rug link via

Hawking pens kids' cosmology book link via

This would have been cooler if it was still beating link via

311 uses link via

Meerkats shoot their own family album link via

Tichu world link via

I drove down to Circle-R again to take pictures of their second disc golf course before Circle-R closes for some time for improvements. And, boy, do they need improvements! The course is unplayable. With all of the recent rains, the grasses and small bushes have overrun the place. Unless you had spotters, you probably would not be able to find where it landed. The signs were broken and laying on the ground. I got lost a couple of times (even holding a map of the course did not help). And I could not where hole 17 started.

So, after walking around in the sun, I played their other course, Rolling Meadows. I played much better. Getting a couple of birdies. But I lost my records when the stupid phone hung on me and I had to power it off. It seems that someone with the same first name and last initial as I do had a skip ace...

Afterwards, I ate at Estancia Churrascaria. The place was pretty good. I started off with the salad buffet which had items like mozzarella cheese, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, and sun-dried tomatoes. But I have to admit that the selection was rather small. Not that it mattered, of course. I came here for the meat.

They had many different types of meats to choose from. And most of them were tasty. I am not usually a fan of chicken legs, but the one I had was savory. The lamb was not too gamy. The sausage was not too bad. But the tenderloin was far too overcooked and dry.

There were two sides that I liked. The fried plantains were sweet and creamy. And the mini pop-over muffins were excellent! Certainly the best part of the meal. I will definitely have to try making something like that at home...

TransAmerica

Sadly, I have heard that a game designer, Franz-Benno Delonge has passed away. And in honor of him, we are dedicating this night to play his games. First up was a quintessential light and fluffy filler game TransAmerica. It has been quite a while since I have played this game. But it was easy to get back on the bicycle and ride it again. I did pretty well. I was the first to connect my five cities in two of the three rounds. And that was enough to give me the win.

Big City

Next up was the quintessential lunch time game. And that is how I got started in this field or shall I say hobby. It is an easy game that can be played in less than an hour. While I have fond memories of playing this game back when we played lunch-time games at IBM, I do not have fond memories of this playing. It seems my role was to be hosed by Jon and his playing of parks and factories. Which put me solidly in last place. Well, at least it was over quickly.

Goldbräu

After that was Goldbräu. Which is a decent game of limited actions. With only three actions that you can perform during the seven days of the week, you would think that the game would be boring. But this game forces you to make hard choices. Do you get another stock in a company? Do you expand the territory of a company that you own? Or do you try and take control of the boss position in a company?

The only annoying factor is the simultaneous reveal mechanism of this game. Where you are rewarded for choosing an option that no one else does.

Tichu

Jon started the game with a rather weak hand. But no one was able to go over what he played. So he sneaked out to finish first. Which left Doug, with the Tichu hand, missing his opportunity. I was able to get my only points out of my hand and into my tricks taken pile. So I passed when Mike got the lead and gave the other team my Phoenix.

I made a number of random wishes against Mike. But none were more infuriating than my five wish on a lead of Mah Jong, two, three, four, and Phoenix. Mike had to bomb that straight with his run-bomb containing a five. Which was good, because my partner would have to split his long straight up to satisfy that wish (and leave him with many stragglers). Perhaps I shouldn't get too into random wishing...

You know, as I look up the games that Franz-Benno Delonge created, I realize that I own some more of his games! Games like Manila, Dos Rios, and Fjords! I am going to have to declare next week to be a continuation of the mourning process and play those games... along with Tichu hopefully.

On a new RHEL5.1 installation, I want to install screen. yum is borked. So, my next step is to figure out which cd it is on. At least you can use the file image of a cd as a virtual cd drive.

[root@hamzy2 mnt]# mount -t iso /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso /mnt/tmp/
mount: unknown filesystem type 'iso'
mount: maybe you meant 'iso9660'?

Okay, it prints out an error. But it seems to be a popular error and has a suggestion.

[root@hamzy2 mnt]# mount -t iso9660 /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso /mnt/tmp/
mount: /home/tmp/RHEL5.1-Server-20070822.1-i386-disc1-ftp.iso is not a block device (maybe try `-o loop'?)

Grrr! Okay, there are two popular mistakes that it recognizes enough to give you an alternative but not enough to actually do it for you. And you do not actually have to specify the file system type because it magically auto-detects it. So why can't it do some more auto-detection?

Today was the day of bad trump splits in 42. I was set in two hands because of it. In the first hand, I had 5 4's including the boss trump (4:4). However I was missing the 6:4 and one other four. The person to my left had the remaining two to set me. In the other hand, I had a two-mark hand. I had three blanks (0:0, 0:6, and 0:4), doubles, and a potential walker under the double. And the person to my left had three blanks as well including the 0:5.

Today was the second Blue Skies Over Texas Tournament for me. And the day was pretty horrible for me because it rained. Actually, now that I think about it, it has rained for every tournament that I have been in! In fact, we could not attend our first tournament ever because it rained so much that the course was flooded out.

We arrived early in the morning. It was only just raining a couple of drops. But that would change later on in the day. For the worst. The course was already damp. Damp enough to leave tracks. Like you can see in this picture were a truck or ATV had driven along the course. Fortunately, there was a lot of mulch out on the course. But it was strangely missing in spots.

We had a group of five in the first half of the day. And Damon Neth was in my group again.

Lunch was free. There was taco meats, mixings, and even beer (but it was the low quality Keystone light). John, Jon, and I played 99. However, we ran into problems. With out Adam, we were unable to remember some of the more finicky bits of the rules (like declaring and revealing). But it did not matter. John was not interested in playing it at all. And opted instead to play hacky sack.

We finally started the second half (where the course is reversed) late. Around 2:30 or so. And it started to rain much worse. Ugh.

But the day did end on a positive note. Jon won fourth place (tied for third according to him) for $110 in merchandise at Disc Nation. On the way home we stopped to eat at Bi Ki Ni Bar.

There were five of us tonight at Mesa Rosa. We started out playing a couple hands of Mu. But then Nick wanted to step out. So we played a game of Tichu.

It was not much of a game. I started off strong. Then Jon stepped up to the plate (with John over-tichuing even). And the desperation Grand-Tichu was set with a one-two.

The only amusing thing this evening was with Nick helping (or, at least, giving advice) Traci during the game, we gave them the name of "Nick Traci".