swaits.com

Watch Cocaine being made

2006-11-25T14:09:37-06:00

Seriously. This looks like nasty stuff.

Crack a Combo Lock

2006-11-15T01:27:52-06:00

Badass.. I love [stuff like this](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/297062/how_to_crack_a_combination_lock/).

Floyd Presentation

2006-10-24T11:55:07-05:00

I went to a talk by Dr. Arnie Baker last week with Cathy. He showed some of the case for Floyd’s innocence (by the rules). It was quite compelling, and I’m not certain that Floyd should not be held as a doper.

The talk drew quite a crowd and now they’ve got video of it posted online! Get it here.

Go watch it, tell me what you think!

Update: Better, easier to access, mirrors are up at archive.org.

Super Slow-Motion Dragster Starts

2006-10-22T10:08:05-05:00

This is nothing short of bad ass!

Remeber when boardgames were easy?

2006-10-21T18:38:16-05:00

I do. I also remember when they sucked. They’re still pretty easy, but they suck much less. Some rule.

Avionics Precision increases risk

2006-10-21T12:05:10-05:00

Philip Greenspun has an interesting take on modern day avionics precision increasing collision risk.

Almost any other system would be safer. If you sent airplanes up to fly in random point-to-point paths, e.g., from Boston to Denver, they’d be less likely to encounter one another.

I do think the airway system may need revision. With an increase in ATC and general computing capacity, there’s little reason to keep an airway system. Going direct, or near direct is somehow in our future.

Via comp.risks.

Collegiate Voting System Design Competition

2006-10-21T12:01:45-05:00

I’m really interested in voting systems. For example, here’s a recent post I made about Rivest’s ThreeBallot system.

Now college students are setting out to design, publish, and attack new voting systems in VoComp. We won’t have the results for another year, but I’m looking forward to what comes out of this.

Via comp.risks.

0-60 in 1 second - in a street car

2006-10-20T11:22:26-05:00

Mach 10 UAV

2006-10-19T10:27:51-05:00

The replacement for the Blackbird. Read about it at defensetech.

Full length documentaries online

2006-10-15T22:03:05-05:00

TayTV has posted links to 10 documentaries, which they recommend, and are available online - for the moment anyway.

I hope to check a few of them out soon.

E3 goes legit..

2006-10-15T21:28:01-05:00

Yes, I’m happy to see that E3 is coming back next summer in a massively scaled down format.

E3 had turned into a mouth breathing fanboy collective. Good luck getting to see any Nintendo stuff at E3 in the past 5 years. If you did, it means you’re more patient than me, or you had exhibitor access (which I must say is damn nice).

Now E3 will be what it’s supposed to be. Developers, publishers, and media - all by invitation only. This means that all of us lame-o programmers who really have very little business attending in the first place, won’t be able to take 2 or 3 days off on the company because it’s E3. This seems fair, and good, to me. It’s a few more days of actual work improving our products.

Also, maybe it’ll be quieter.

Is this how Stonehenge was built?

2006-10-15T21:03:43-05:00

We Americans all have BLOOD ON OUR HANDS

2006-10-15T11:51:02-05:00

Yes, that’s you and me. We are killers. Many of you by choice, while a few of us never chose such atrocity.

The blood of maybe a million people. Iraqis, Afghanis, and Americans. Actual credible people have estimated this - people with much more credibility than Shrub and his Posse of idiots. You choose: here’s the article.

How I'm Voting This Fall

2006-10-06T15:59:00-05:00

Here’s my secret ballot. Oops, it’s not a secret. Truth is, I have nothing to hide and I just feel like yapping.

I’m a registered Democrat. But I’ve not voted Dems in a very long time. I’ve wanted to switch the registration to Independent a few times, but then I usually decide against it since it let’s me vote in (or taint) some primaries.

Anyway, we’re coming up on the mid-terms. These are my plans.

Calfornia Referendae

California has quite a few propositions on the ballot, and here’s how I’m voting on them:

Bond measures. Definite *NO* on anything that’s a bond measure. I quickly counted over $40 BILLION in bond measures! OMFG.. $40 BILLION. That’s debt that we cannot afford. Oh, I don’t fall for the education needs more money crap - it’s not the answer.
State funded campaigns: Probably YES, but I need to do a bit more research.
Tobacco tax. Definite YES. I’m sick of all the ads on my TV spewing crap - and when I read the very end of the very fine print it says “R.J. Reynolds”, or “Smokless Tobacco Company”. You liars, I hope you have to pay. Plus I don’t smoke.
Oil tax. Definite YES. Same as tobacco, except the company is “Chevron”. Plus, I don’t think this will change gasoline prices, which are market driven. Even if it does, I don’t care. I like high gasoline prices. Less giant SUVs on the road means better bicycling and motorcycling for me, and less traffic jams for everyone.

There are a few other things about amending the State Constitution blah blah blah. I’ll either abstain, or read more about it as we get closer.

Elected Offices

Now, as for how I’m voting on actual humans…

In years past I really identified strongly with the Natural Law Party. Unfortunately, they’ve whithered away into a project called the U.S. Peace Government. Now, the party I most identify with is the Libertarian Party.

These days are bad days in the world of U.S. Government. I believe they’re all crooks and liars, they’re all bad, they all need to go away. Something needs to be done. So, here’s my voting strategy, which was inspired by a friend of a friend.

I will not vote for any incumbent in any office.
If the incumbent is a Republican, I’ll vote Democrat.
If the incumbent is a Democrat, I’ll vote Libertarian.
Next up, Green, then maybe I’ll just play roulette. Maybe I’ll try to guess which one doesn’t believe in the whole jesus fable and pick them?

I usually do not vote by party. Instead, I’ve historically selected candidates on an individual basis; however, I think this is the right way to go this time around.

That’s it. That’s my conscience, that’s my vote. I hope that with these elections we can start down the path of fixing the giant mess.

And, finally, I hope you’ll all go out and vote your collective conscience this Fall.

Google Code Search

2006-10-05T09:33:59-05:00

Wow this could be really useful in my work!

–Steve

Clinton, more true than not. Rice, liar.

2006-10-04T23:47:50-05:00

Plus she’s one bucktooth ugly bitch at the same time. See the report yourself at FactCheck.org.

Physics Sketch Program from MIT

2006-10-04T23:43:44-05:00

I’m basically in awe.. I want this.

Fat people drink Diet Coke

2006-10-04T12:57:00-05:00

They do. Have you ever noticed? Next time you’re out with a group of people, take notice of who drinks what. In my experience, fat people often drink Diet Coke (or similar), and skinny people drink something else.

And I know fat people who’ve been drinking it for years and years, and they keep getting fatter!

Here’s a message to you fat Diet Coke drinking people: it’s not freaking working! In fact, I think it may be working against you!!! And that’s not even getting into the artificial sweetener you’re poisoning yourself with.

Oh, along those lines, I caught an episode of The Biggest Loser one night last week. OMFG, these are the most pathetic fucking people I’ve ever seen in my life. I was laughing, almost hysterically, in utter disbelief at the crybaby victim mentality on display. That’s not even a fair description - I don’t know how to describe it except that I was blown away. Wow.. the show is aptly named.

Autoblog Spoils F1 Race - damn proud of it!

2006-10-02T17:32:00-05:00

Well, Autoblog never covers F1 results. Furthermore, I wouldn’t expect them to put any kind of motorsports results in the title of an article. Even futhermore, I wouldn’t expect them to do this at like 0’dark thirty in the morning before 99% of us wankers have had a chance to watch it on our PVRs.

Yet, this is exactly what they did this past Sunday morning. They spoiled the race for me, and, according to many or even most of the comments, for many others as well. In my case it popped up in my RSS reader, and caught me completely off guard.

I complained to them in my comment, even asking for an apology, and here’s the official response.

Alright, enough complaining. This is a news site. We report news. It’s not often you see people asking to have their news watered down, but if that’s the consensus, so be it.

Autoblog is a constantly-evolving site, and the coverage depends on the interests of the bloggers. I got up at the crack of dawn where I am to watch the race live and posted the results as soon as it was done, earlier than many dedicated racing sites had ‘em. I figured if this F1 fan could get up to see the race at 7am, the dedicated fans in the US could stay up on a Saturday night ‘till 1 or 2 to watch it live on one of the few occasions they can, and that those who hadn’t would benefit from the news as early as they could get it. What thanks do we get? A bunch of whiners crying – we’ll mail you some official Autoblog tissues. And you’ll get your censorship for next time.

What? His attitude seems to say, I got up early in the morning to watch a race, so fuck you, I can spoil it for you if I want (even if we’ve NEVER covered F1 before, and it would have been damn easy to post it with the spoilers “after the jump”).

Is Autoblog so big now they don’t care about us little people? I called the guy an ahole several times and am glad for it.

Fuck you Autoblog. You’re out of my RSS reader.

Some serious Puritanical Bullshit!

2006-09-30T00:08:49-05:00

A 5th grade teacher is suspended, ultimately fired (no contract renewal), because some wanker kid’s parent complained that they saw some nude art at the local museum. WTF.. this place is an ever rotting shithole.

Article here on NYTimes (reg req’d).