Back on my birthday I received a gift certificate from my dad to the photo place down the street. It’s a fantastic photo store, probably the best known one in town. Anyway, I decided to try making some enlargements of digital photos, just to see what they’d look like coming off my camera.

I selected this image, which should be familiar to you, my loyal blog readers.

I had three different enlargements made up. A matte 5x7, a glossy 8x10 and a glossy 12x18 (which was the largest standard enlargement on their list). I wasn’t sure how the really big one was going to work out, as Photoshop told me I was only going to get 120 dpi or so when I spread the picture out over that area. As it turns out 120 dpi is (barely) ok, and I am very happy with the result.

It is true that if you hold the 5x7 up next to the 12x18 the smaller print is slightly sharper, but standing at a reasonable viewing distance the larger enlargement looks great.

My plan now is to matte out the giant enlargement to a standard size, then buy a stock frame (IKEA has various 20x28 inch frames that would probably work just fine).

Not sure what I’m going to do with the other two… I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

 › photos     2004-08-25 22:59   ...0 comments

this is highly amusing. Trust me.

 › cool     2004-08-23 09:10   ...0 comments

Sartre’s Cookbook

Looks highly amusing. Reminds me of a story about some nihilistic café at which you were given a menu of lovely items, but no matter what you order, an empty plate and empty wine glass show up. Was this café real? I don’t remember. I also don’t remember who told me this story. Perhaps there is no café. Perhaps there is no story. I am not a philosopher.

Link gacked from LJ user Désormais, found through LJ recent postings.

 › funny     2004-08-22 16:02   ...4 comments

I’m sitting on my balcony enjoying a lovely August day.

Yesterday at 9 am or so we got the call we’d been expecting for some time now. It was from Gav and Emily, with the happy news that they were about to become parents all over again.

I headed over there with Jen close behind to find Emily in Gav’s kneepads (she was finding the early contractions easier while kneeling). While Gav made us all tasty omelettes, the midwife came and told Emily that the contractions could stop and the whole deal might be off for today. This was a bit frustrating to Emily (not to mention the rest of us) but Emily persevered and the contractions got more and more serious.

It was at this point that we decided to take their daughter Aladara out of the picture a bit and entertain her. The plan had been to see if she wanted to be involved in the process, but I think she didn’t exactly know what to do, especially once things started to get more intense for Emily.

So, Jen and I went upstairs with her and made paintings, then we read books together. I had forgotten how exciting The Cat In The Hat Comes Back really is as a children’s book. Seuss was the master of rhyme, metre and fun. I think it’s just as fun to be the reader as the listener in terms of enjoying it. I had forgotten the pink snow too.

Aladara’s masterpiece. She likes to work with paint and white glue

Anyway, we tried to have a picnic outside, but the wasps came, so we had an inside picnic in Aladara’s room.

We decided to head out to the park, to totally vacate the premises as Emily moved into the final stages of labour. So we packed Aladara up in her stroller. She’s old enough now for us to be able to ask her what we need to bring to the park (Water and Juice!) and how to get there (Go that way!) and being at the park was fun. There was much running around and sliding, and meeting of friends, and sharing of buckets of sand. It was a good place to get some photos too, so here’s some of Jen and Aladara at the park.

Having enjoyed the park we walked up the street to the drug store (Aladara enjoyed pressing the door-opener button) to pick up some extra strength Tylenol for Emily, then came back to our house for bread and cheese, and to watch Monsters, Inc. together. No sooner had we started, however, did we get a call from Gav with good news and a request to bring the big sister home.

We arrived back at their house to find the happy but tired parents in the basement with the new baby! Aladara was a sweetie, declaring that she liked the baby, which while endearing as a new human was still getting adjusted to the realities of life outside a warm damp cosy bag inside Emily.

As always I am stunned by how much less placid life is with a new baby. I mean, just a few hours before we’d been chatting with Emily, and the baby was presumably entertaining itself as it released its “I’m ready to come out now” hormones, and now it’s out and ready to be taken care of!

There really is nothing like a newborn baby for enjoyment though… Gav and Emily wisely decided to nap the afternoon away, and I held my new friend for a few hours in the living room. (Newborn babies are known for napping deeply right after birth, so it’s a good opportunity for parents to rest.) She snuggled into my arms as I closed my eyes myself and later read some short stories from an anthology within reach. So small and light, you kind of feel like you’ve just picked up the clothes and left the baby behind, but there she is, all 6 lbs. 10 oz. of her.

At the end of the day we went out to pick up a So Good feast. Mmmm… a tasty end to a very good day.

Edit: Just found this picture of Jen holding the new baby. Thought it deserved a home here too:

    2004-08-22 15:14   ...7 comments

For the pleasure of those livejournal users who have, until now, needed to read my blog on orange-carb.org, I have syndicated it onto the livejournal site as cmhblog.

Apologies to those who already knew this, and for whom this update probably constitutes a spam.

 › blogging     2004-08-22 14:30   ...0 comments

Well, (crosses fingers) I hope I’ve solved a long standing AirPort issue tonight. I had this problem where a “The password you entered is not correct for the preferred AirPort network” came up every time one of our laptops woke from sleep or was powered on.

For a while this went away on my laptop, but I changed the encryption key tonight, and then it started happening again.

Through trial and error I have got it working again, and it works now on Jen’s mac too. For the record, here is what I had to do to get things working right again.

1. Configure the wireless access point to broadcast the SSID (network name)
2. Open the Keychain Access application in /Application/Utilities
3. Delete the Keychain entry corresponding to the SSID in question
4. Select a different network (or turn AirPort off)
5. Select the SSID from the menu bar
6. You’ll be prompted for the network password. Select the hex key option and enter it with no ‘$’ at the front. Add it to the keychain too.
7. Open the Location system preference pane
8. Select Join a specific network if not already selected, and select SSID from the combo box
9. Paste or type in the network password. THERE IS NO LONGER A NEED TO PRECEDE IT WITH A $ CHARACTER ANYMORE.
10. Apply changes
11. Reconfigure access point to hide the SSID
12. Test with a sleep-wake cycle. You should be good.

This has taken me numerous hours to do. #@*@*&*$#@ apple for putting controls in too many places with poor documentation

 › technology     2004-08-18 20:37   ...2 comments

Pacala and Socolow of Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative have just published a paper in Science that refutes claims that there is nothing we can do about carbon emissions without future technologies.

They say that we should try to at least arrest environmental Carbon Dioxide (the greenhouse gas) at today’s levels, rather than allowing them to continue to increase.

The scientists present 15 ideas, of which they say 7 must be selected, to deal with the problem.

Their backgrounder is available here.

    2004-08-15 14:02   ...0 comments

I pass most of these by, but this one seemed appealing for some reason.

You are Kermit the Frog.
You are reliable, responsible and caring. And you have a habit of waving your arms about maniacally.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS:
“Hi ho!” “Yaaay!” and “Sheesh!”

FAVORITE MOVIE:
“How Green Was My Mother”

LAST BOOK READ:
“Surfin’ the Webfoot: A Frog’s Guide to the
Internet”

HOBBIES:
Sitting in the swamp playing banjo.

QUOTE: “Hmm, my banjo is wet.”

What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

 › cute     2004-08-15 10:34   ...1 comment

I may be disconnected from current pop music in my folk world, but this has just passed me by, and I kind of wish it had just kept right on goin…

Gacked from here.

Put me on a mountain, way back in the back woods
Put me on a lake with pickin on the line
Put me ‘round a campfire cookin’ something I just cleaned
You do your thing, I’ll do mine

I ain’t tradin’ in my family’s safety
Just to save a little gas
And I’ll pray to God any place, any time
And you can bet I’ll pick up the phone if Uncle Sam calls me up
You do your thing, I’ll do mine

Hey, I’ll worry about me
You just worry about you
And I’ll believe what I believe
And you believe what you believe too

I ain’t gonna spare the rod
Cuz that ain’t what my daddy did
And I sure know the difference between wrong and right
You know, to me it’s all just common sense
A broken rule, a consequence
You do your thing, I’ll do mine

Hey, I’ll worry about me
You just worry about you
And I’ll believe what I believe
And you believe what you believe too

I’m gonna keep on working hard
Make my money the old-fashioned way
I don’t wanna piece of someone else’s pie
If I don’t get my fill on life I ain’t gonna blame no one but me
You do your thing, I’ll do mine

You ain’t gonna be my judge
Cuz my judge will judge us all one day
You do your thing, I’ll do mine

Wow. How do you actually go about indoctrinating children (bday=1988) to believe this crapola. How do you take these uneducated kids and make them into neoconservative warhawks when they have trouble spelling?

I love that this person’s judge will be judging me someday and that they are an expert on right and wrong, but that I should still do my own thing as they do theirs. Never mind that their thing includes murdering innocent people.

 › normative     2004-08-15 00:48   ...5 comments

They play the drums.

 › domicile     2004-08-14 20:34   ...0 comments

Well, I was getting all pissed that no one else has updated their blog today, and then I realised that it might be my turn.

So the final installment of the AAMAS saga is as follows. On the Friday it was Jen’s turn to give a talk.

Read the Complete Entry

    2004-08-14 20:11   ...1 comment

A bit sleepy tonight, but feel like advancing the blog, so you’ll have to put up with a somewhat sleepy and disoriented style, and less editing than usual…

Wednesday we spent a bit of time in Central Park and at the museum of natural history. It was super-hot, and at the museum it was almost impossible to find the entrance. They have a large raised quad with water play areas and stuff, and it looks like that’ll be the entrance, but actually the entrance is hidden half underground…

Read the Complete Entry

    2004-08-12 00:14   ...0 comments

Interesting essay on these diets is here.

 › health     2004-08-10 10:24   ...0 comments

Well, Jen and I returned last week recently from the AAMAS 2004 conference. That’s the conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Computing. For those not in the know, this relates to Jen and my academic work (separate but in the same area) on multi-agent modelling.

Read the Complete Entry

    2004-08-10 00:35   ...0 comments

Phew. It has been an exhausting summer so far. I feel like I’ve been on the go since I was at Apple’s WWDC conference in June.

There’s lots to catch you up on, and I have photos galore to share, so keep your eyes peeled for a series of summer updates garnered from my memories of the recent past!

 › musings     2004-08-10 00:20   ...0 comments