digital photo prints

A year and a half ago, when I was unemployed, I managed to catch up on organizing and ordering three years worth of digital photos. Since then, I've fallen so far behind that my Costco.com photo center account expired, and all my old photos got erased. (Actually, I'm happy about that. Saved me from having to delete them by hand.)

Anyway, I was recently looking at photo sites and was amazed at the increased variety and quality. I used to order from Ofoto, Shutterfly ($0.49/print), and most recently Costco ($0.24/print). Now prices are down in the low 20 cent range all around, and there are coupons and special deals to be had all over the web.

I think I'm going to give winkflash a shot; they charge $0.18/print (no coupons required), offer free shipping, and I've found several great reviews of their photo quality, as well.

engineering productivity

What's the best way to kill engineering productivity? Two words: brain teasers.

At lunch today, we were talking about interviewing and interview questions. Although we all agreed that most brain teasers did not make good interview questions, we were nonetheless diverted into the conversational black hole of asking brain teasers.

Question 1: There is an airplane with N seats and N passengers. The first person walks in and sits in a random seat. Each following person sits in his/her own seat if possible. If not, he/she sits in a random seat. What is the probability that the last person will sit in his/her own seat?

Question 2: There are 25 racehorses, but only 5 horses can race at a time. Assuming that every horse runs every race in exactly the same time, and each horse's race time is distinct, how many races does it take to determine which 3 horses are the fastest?

We did manage to solve both problems before leaving the cafeteria. Eventually.

hero

Some people from work are going to Shoreline to see Zhang Yimou's "Hero" today. I decided not to go, since I've seen it twice already, first in Taiwan a couple years ago, and then last year at a friend's house on DVD. (Imported? Yes. Pirated? Not sure.)

I did like many aspects of the movie: the gorgeous cinematography, the casting (it's nice to see Jet Li keeping his dignity), the unhurried pace, and of course, the fight scenes.

However, I was disturbed by the "moral of the story", which seemed to imply that rebelling against authority was bad, and individuals should sacrifice to the "greater good"; in this case, a unified China under the rule of a tyrannical emperor who believed in ethnic cleansing and trapping people inside of the Great Wall.

For me, it's way too easy to draw a parallel between that ruler and the current totalitarian Communist regime, and from there, it's not difficult to see the movie as pro-China propaganda. Of course, I'm biased.

Even so, it's a little surprising to see a movie like this from Zhang Yimou, who has historically had difficulties with the Chinese government regarding the content of his movies.

mmm...chocolate

Today I went to a "chocolate tasting" event at work. The founder of Cocoa Pete's (also the founder of Pete's Wicked Ale) talked about the process of chocolate making, we sampled a variety of chocolates paired with beer/wine/soda, and finally we had a most excellent chocolate-themed dinner.

It was fun, yummy, and I learned quite a bit. Apparently, in Europe, "dark chocolate" must be 35% pure chocolate, while in the US, it only has to be 15% pure chocolate, unless it's semisweet or bittersweet, in which case it must also be 35% pure chocolate. Incidentally, there is no difference, technically speaking, between semisweet and bittersweet chocolate.

Similarly, European "milk chocolate" must be 25% pure chocolate, and American "milk chocolate" only has to be 10% pure chocolate. No wonder theirs tastes better. Also, so-called "white chocolate" has no chocolate at all, it's just cocoa butter and sugar. Mmm...fat.

the never-ending tire saga

About 3 months ago, I went to Yosemite with a bunch of friends. As I mentioned previously, I took a nail in my left front tire, and had to get it patched at the Yosemite Garage.

More recently, I noticed that my tire seemed to have sprung a slow leak. I had to fill up my tires about every two weeks, and then every week, and then every few days. At that point I started to look into getting new tires.

The Tire Rack was highly recommended by several, so I browsed around and found that Michelin was offering a $50 rebate on a set of four tires. Michelin makes a very nice Ultra High Performance All-Season tire called the Pilot Sport A/S. However, at $135 a tire, they were significantly more expensive than my other choice, Pirelli's PZero Nero M&S, at $101 a tire. I waffled for a couple of days, and managed to forget completely that the rebate was expiring at the end of the week.

The following Monday, I was all ready to buy, so I clicked rapidly through the checkout process until I discovered the rebate had expired. I sulked for about a week, not wanting to admit defeat. It's horrible when you lose money due to your own laziness. I kept thinking if I waited long enough I would discover another coupon or rebate. Finally, last Sunday, I caved to reason and bought the tires.

Monday evening, on my way home, I took a nail in my left front tire. My new tires arrived Tuesday afternoon. If I had gotten the tires with the rebate three weeks previously, I would have just been out $135. I guess the moral of the story is that procrastination pays? Maybe a better moral is that lots of times, things just work themselves out, in the end.

As an aside, it really kicks ass to live just minutes away from work. Tuesday morning, I called up a co-worker at 10am and he swung by and picked me up on his way to work. That afternoon, I convinced another co-worker to come by and talk me through putting on the spare. Last time I had a flat, a bunch of guys did all the work, so I wanted to make sure I learned how to do it this time. I figure if I know how to change a flat, maybe I won't get one.

To Say Nothing of the Dog

A few years ago, a friend recommended Doomsday Book to me as a good example of "science fiction lite". I think it was a term he made up himself, and after finishing the book I told him I didn't really think it was science fiction at all.

It was my first introduction to Connie Willis, and in the years following I read through pretty much all of her fiction. She does reuse certain character motifs, but her writing is engaging and her books fun to read.

My favorite is To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is a light, funny, clever book inspired (and named after) Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. Recently, I recommended it enthusiastically to a friend.

A few weeks later, she returned it, having been unable to finish it. I was perplexed, so I talked to another friend (also a Connie Willis fan) and we came to the conclusion that even though Willis' books are light on explicit scientific theory, they do involve a certain amount of logical reasoning, skepticism, and focus on detail. In short, they require a techy thought process.

For example, the plot of "To Say Nothing of the Dog" is based heavily on time travel, and the protagonist spends the first hundred pages or so in a time travel-induced daze. As a reader, it's difficult to remember that the main character's interpretation of events may not be entirely trustworthy. Also, like a mystery writer, Willis expects her readers to retain seemingly innocuous plot points until they become significant. One of the reasons that I enjoy her writing is that I am forced to concentrate, rather than being fed a simple, easy-to-follow plot. Others may not agree.

I still highly recommend Willis' books, especially "To Say Nothing of the Dog", "Doomsday Book", "Passage", and "Bellwether", but I will probably shy away from recommending her and other "science fiction lite" writers to less technical readers.

bagborroworsteal.com

Ran across an article about bagborroworsteal.com this morning. It's being described as "NetFlix for purses". Pretty clever idea, actually.

Marine World

I went to Marine World this weekend, for the first time since I was 12.

Marine World got bought by Six Flags a couple of years ago, so instead of just having shows, like Sea World, it now has lots of roller coasters. I went on Vertical Velocity, Zonga, Medusa, and a bunch of bitty rides, and I think that was about all my head could take. Must be getting old.

I've decided 21 is the best age to be. Everything's legal, and your body hasn't started falling apart yet. Too bad I didn't know it then.

more PRC bullying

I'll let the article speak for itself:

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) -- China is pushing for the removal of advertising posters supporting Taiwan's Olympic team from 500 baggage carts at Athens airport, a Taiwan official said on Friday.

Games organizers, under pressure from China, have asked Taiwan to withdraw the posters, said Lin Chia-lung, head of the Government Information Office.

I guess it's been a whole year since they made Miss Taiwan cry by bullying her into wearing a "Miss Chinese Taipei" sash.

what happened to Prince and Lady?

Last month my sister and I ordered a new set of "Little House" books on eBay. Like many of our books, our old copies had been literally read to bits, and we were getting sick of dropping pages and having to put them back in order.

It arrived a couple of weeks ago, but I was busy then, so I just finished rereading the books this week. Some thoughts...

- It must have really, really sucked to give up that house with the glass windows in Indian Territory. I wonder what happened to it?

- Was Mr. Edwards a real person? The whole walking forty miles in a blizzard part makes it seem like he must be made up, but wouldn't it be cool if he was real?

- "Farmer Boy" always makes me hungry. The mealtime descriptions are just delicious; I have to think really hard after reading them, to remember how plain the food really was back then.

- The two year gap in between "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "By the Shores of Silver Lake" is still a little strange. I did some web surfing and discovered that someone has written a new book about that time; it talks about the Ingalls' living in Burr Oak (Iowa) for several years before returning to Plum Creek.

I've always liked all the books in the series except "The First Four Years", the last one. It's not written in the same style as all the other books, everything that happens is depressing, and it's somewhat disjointed. If the story had ended with "These Happy Golden Years", I could've imagined that Laura and Almanzo went on to be prosperous farmers, like the Wilders in New York. Instead, "The First Four Years" gives a glimpse of the poverty that they endured for most of their lives.

What a disappointment Almanzo's life must have been to him. In "Farmer Boy" he seemed like an especially precocious farmboy and horseman. In "The Long Winter" and "Little Town on the Prairie" he seemed courageous, dashing, and ahead of the game, with his superior team of horses and his own homestead claim. Given his promising start, it's especially disheartening to read about him ending up crippled and poor, losing his claim, and leaving De Smet for Missouri.

Speaking of horses, I've always wanted to know: What happened to the beautiful Morgan horses, Prince and Lady? At the end of "These Happy Golden Years" Almanzo uses them to drive Laura home after their wedding, and a pair of "brown horses" is mentioned a couple of times in the first few pages of "The First Four Years", but then they are never mentioned again. There's nothing anywhere on the web, either.

fat what?

A friend pointed me to fatwallet.com the other day as a good site to find discussions on credit cards and rewards information.

Since then, I've used it to find an 8% cash back offer at a sporting goods store, some informative postings comparing various digital photo sites, and several promotion codes for various online shopping sites. I'm trying to figure out it's not more popular. Are people just too lazy to do a little research to save a little money?