jwz

smason wrote:

I wrote a Missile Command clone for the multi-touch wall at Obscura Digital. Just like the original, except you can fire by touching the wall with your fingers. Save the Golden Gate Bridge from ICBMs. Fun for the whole family!

chiselwright

• 07:26 Office not properly locked. Use fob, pull door. Doors not bolted. Pull both open. Alarm set off. Bugger.
• 07:28 Expect building security to appear. Phone security company listed on door. They can't do anything but they might phone someone about it. ...
• 07:30 Might as well steal some expensive clothes while I wait... ;-)
• 07:33 Today is turning to shit even quicker than I thought it would
• 07:40 Alarm stopped. No sign of life. Sacred to try to go in for fear of setting it off again
• 07:45 0745 - where are the other bastards?
• 08:05 Sent shitty email. $boss+1 asked me if I'm pissed off. Heheh.
• 09:13 Tired and hungry
• 11:49 It works locally, there's no ticket, no instructions
  to recreate it, no data to test with. I'm treating this "bug" as "doesn't
  exist".
• 13:28 Hoping I'm not coming across as anti-social at lunch today. Stomach feels like it wants to misbehave. Not up to moving much.
• 14:09 I suspect the reason my Gigabeat player isn't being detected by my laptop is because the cable is plugged into the desktop PC
• 14:32 jshirley article on TheSchwartz,"Setup was actually very simple. Aside from the hidden doc directory containing the schema..."
  Thank you!
• 17:36 "Why won't you go home?"
  "Because I'm a masochist"

substitute

1. The only reason the hybrid car exists is to allow auto manufacturers to continue selling grossly wasteful and polluting vehicles to consumers. Because California law requires an overall emissions target and minimum quantity of zero emissions vehicles, a manufacturer has to sell hybrid or electric powered vehicles in order to continue selling large commercial trucks to consumers as toys, and other sins.
   
   
2. Purchasing a hybrid vehicle pays off the owner's conscience in the best American way: with a unique product. The buyer feels a sense of moral superiority, the seller makes some money, and the essential problem continues. It's no wonder the name of the most popular one sounds like "pious."
   
   
3. Buying a hybrid car means buying a new car. Don't buy a new car. It's true that as your hybrid car runs it will put less direct pollutant material in the air and water. It's also true that it will use less gasoline. However, you have just bought a very large machine which was manufactured new. Add up the steel and aluminum, the machining and casting of parts, the chemicals used and dumped, the nonrenewable resources consumed or used to build the car, all the energy used to build a car and carry its materials around, the energy used to move the car around by ship and truck to the dealer, all of it. Making a car is a very top heavy resource-hungry industrial process.
   
   And your car doesn't go away. Unless you have it artfully crushed into a cube as a coffee table, or personally supervise its recycling, your car is sold to another person and stays on the road. And that person's car is sold down the line too, until we arrive at unusable or junked cars, which then go to a graveyard to be broken down. Everything about the car is toxic too, just in case you're curious.
   
   So now you've brought a new car into the world (they'll make more!) and given a nice big fat gut punch to Mother Nature in doing so. Failure.
   
   
4. Keep your old car instead. If it's not so run down that the mileage is shot, and it's passing the emissions tests, it's a better deal for "the planet" and for you also. It is not as demonstrative of your love for the GREEN GAIA to continue with your serviceable older car, but trust me, she appreciates it.
   
   
5. nstead, do things that don't burn fuel, or burn less. If you're physically able, ride a bike more to short drives. Use public transit. Even in Southern Californian Heck, where I live, I can (and now I do) take the train into Los Angeles when I am able.
   
   
6. It will be a great day for this country when Americans can look at a serious problem and do something other than pick up a lifestyle magazine and look for some product guides. Buying things is a terrible solution to so many things.

jwz

I posted most of this as a comment in someone else's LJ who was thinking of buying a bike, but perhaps it is of more general interest.

I've been using a bike as my exclusive transportation in SF for about ten years. I've always ridden, but that's when I stopped driving a car except under extreme duress.

Here's how to begin your adventure as a commuter-bicyclist in San Francisco:

1. Never take bike advice from anyone who owns bike shorts, clip shoes, a messenger bag, or a fixie. That's like taking car advice from someone who enjoys rebuilding carburetors.

   (Update: If you are this person, you need not reply with your indignant "corrections". You are not the person to whom this advice is addressed.)

2. "City bikes" and "road bikes" are designed for some Jetsons-slick hypothetical future city that I've never seen. Or maybe for the bike paths in Los Altos or something. Here in real cities, roads are shit, and if you want your wheels and tires to survive curbs and potholes, you need a hybrid. They're a little heavier and a little slower. Are you racing? No? Then you don't care.

3. So, get the cheapest hybrid you can stand. Shocks are a waste of money. You should be able to get a pretty nice brand new hybrid for $370 or so. You can probably get a used one for a hundred bucks.

4. If you feel like you want a lighter bike so that it's easier to carry up stairs: don't bother. That's optimizing the wrong thing. You'll get used to it (by which I mean: become stronger).

5. Get a bike that's the right size for you, and has properly adjusted handlebars and seat. The shop will adjust it for you. If they won't, or if they tell you it doesn't matter, go to a different shop.

6. Get a u-lock. Lock through the frame and the back wheel. Your bike will be stolen, so don't get too attached to it. This also means, don't waste your money on junk like baskets and lights. Just get a backpack.

7. I always replace my front wheel and seat quick-releases with $2 worth of hardware store bolts, and then bend the ends over. This might have some negligible effect on theft. I refuse to be one of those people who lugs around 3 chains and disassembles their bike every time they park, so that's the trade-off I make.

8. The bike-nerd at the bike shop will try to give you smooth, high-pressure (110psi+) tires, because they are more efficient. But if you don't air them up weekly or more often, you'll get pinch-flats every time you hit a pothole, which is always. Also, the gas station air pumps often only go up to 60psi anyway. Get knobby low-pressure (60-80psi) tires and they'll last a lot longer. (If you do end up with stupid tires, you might want to get one of these.)

9. Likewise, make sure the tubes you get have the kind of connectors that the gas station air pumps take. Bike shop nerds like to fuck you with goofy connectors sometimes, out of sheer mean-spiritedness.

10. Bike maintenance: don't do it, ever. It's not worth your time. Just take it to the shop. Getting them to replace a flat for you costs $20 and takes 10 minutes, including the tube, and you don't get dirty.

11. Safety: I follow the Zodiac approach: always assume the cars can see you perfectly, and are trying to kill you. If an intersection seems iffy, use the sidewalk and crosswalks. If big streets like Market and Van Ness freak you out, there are always less traficky ways to go, or just stay on the sidewalks.

12. Grocery shopping: yes, you really can do it with a single backpack. The trick is, shop small once a week instead of big once a month.

13. If you try to dangle bags on your handlebars, you will die.

14. Cross train and trolley tracks at a 45° angle or more or you will die.

15. You really do need to tuck in or roll up your right leg. (You won't die, but you'll shred your pants.)

16. You don't need to ride up Haight. Take Fell or Fulton and then go through the Panhandle.

17. The City is only 7 miles across. Nothing is as far away as you think it is.

Update 2: Oh great, here comes the peanut gallery. Thanks, Cory Rob, srsly. I'd recommend against reading the comments here unless you're the type who reads comments on Youtube. Or maybe you just want to hear a bunch of fixie-hipsters with sand in their vaginas tell me how wrong I am and how you should spend a fortune and do all your repairs yourself.

Update 3: After getting 200ish comments on day one, I went through and deleted most of the redundant ones, and most of the ones from butt-hurt bike-nerds and mechanics. I've also turned on comment screening, and won't be approving new comments here unless you really have something new to say.

chiselwright

• 13:06 Thirteen models (out of 23) didn't bother to turn up. No message. No reason. I'll be busy leaving negative references for them all later.
• 17:36 I wonder if there's a solution to the never-ending problem of confirmed attendees (mostly models) no-showing at group shoots
• 21:55 Home. Need food!

jwz

Please enjoy jwz mixtape 030.

This one's almost all new stuff, to make up for the fact that the last three have trended toward the old. Generally I've been aiming for the mixtapes to have about 1/3rd new stuff (where "new" means "released in the last three years or so") but that doesn't work out so well when I'm doing goofy themes like "reptiles", or obsolete genres like "vaguely industrial breakbeat".

Do you tend to prefer the mixtapes that are mostly newer stuff, or the ones that are mostly older stuff? I'm guessing that since I've had so many comments from people saying "I've never heard any of this before", most of you don't notice the difference...

Last time I asked whether you thought of this as compilation albums or a radio show. One big difference is that if it was a radio show, I wouldn't be trying as hard to avoid ever playing the same song twice.

chiselwright

• 19:24 bummer, no superskinny2008 tomorrow

jwz

Jane Jensen just posted 160kbps MP3s of her awesome (but out of print) 1996 album Comic Book Whore. I love this album a lot. Go get it!