Reason Number One Why '70s Sci-Fi will Never Die

This may be the most incredible thing I have ever seen in a Science Fiction Show:

How to set up a MongrelCluster

Just so I don't forget:

Set Up MongrelCluster

Cassandra

At work, I always feel like Cassandra.  I am warning of impending doom, but no one is listening to me.  Am I crazy?  Or am I visionary.  It is hard to know.

My opinion of software is that one should always strive to release only the best possible version of software, even at the expense of being late to the market.  If you release a crappy application before your competitor, but their application is better, you will have a ton of people switching off of your platform onto the other's, and the cost of re-acquisition is going to be way higher.  If people would just stretch out their release dates and make it super easy to use, people would instead switch from the competition.  I have seen this first hand, and I won't make the former mistake again.

Fly Me To The Moon 3D - Kid Review

This weekend, we went to see Fly Me To The Moon 3D. It was really cool. I was a little worried about my kids seeing it, since every kids movie seems to have name calling, scatological references, and violence. I can barely trust the "G" rating. But this movie was fantastic. The 3D effects were surprisingly realistic. My 1 1/2 year old son kept reaching out to touch the bugs who seemed to truly hover over the audience.

As for the science, it was quite realistic. It was clear that they wanted to truthfully depict the events of the moon launch.  The lander was very real, the maneuvers the crew did to complete the journey to the moon were as they were.  The dialog, etc... weren't fantastic for an adult, but if you could put yourself in the position of a 5 year old kid, it was wildly entertaining.

One thing I do have to say was I found the depiction of the agents of the old Soviet Union to be a bit offensive.  I understand that the writers of the movie were trying to capture the environment of the late '60s, and that most of the cartoons, etc... were like that, Russian goons, etc... but the truth of it was that the Russian operatives were at least as smart and capable as our own, if not better.  I think that even for a kids movie, they could have been depicted as a little more savvy and less savage.  That required a little bit of explaining on my part to my children.

All in all, I would heartily recommend watching this movie with your kids.  I wouldn't recommend, if you watch it on DVD, just plopping them down in front of it.  Although I am not sure if the Dolby glasses will be available with the DVD, I hope they are, with my projector, I could probably reproduce most, if not all of the experience.

I had been wondering what Dolby had been doing for the past few years, and I'm glad to see them taking a more active role in advancing video as they had done for audio.

I'm the Boom King!

This is How you Know the Democratic Race is Over

I don't understand how a politician thinks they can get away with this crap. Bill Clinton hinted at something like that with his Jesse Jackson crack when discussing South Carolina. Now Hillary lets fly with racist crap. Like all European Americans vote strictly along race lines, not that there has been much choice up until now, but really give the average American some credit. I think what she is actually trying to say is that the average American is so unintelligent that they can only pick a candidate that is the same color as they are. What era is she living in? I don't know that I could even vote for her if she won after a statement like that.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/clinton-touts-white-support/index.html?hp

The Glass Harmonica is the freakiest instrument known to man

Just listen, it makes you feel all weird inside:

Buck is Back!

Jamie Lee Curtis and Erin Gray, what more could one ask for

Mac OS X 10.5.1 Slow on Intel Macs

So, the Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, and the new architecture are supposed to be so much faster and better than the old Power PC G5s.  I am still not sure, what I am seeing, at least with my MacBook 2 GHz, 2 GB of RAM as compared with my iMac G5 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM.

Leopard is far faster, and seemingly more stable on the G5.  The only thing I can think of is that the OS isn't optimized for the Intel chips, meaning the SIMD extensions.  Apple has had years of optimizing their code / compilers for AltiVec.  I know what the benchmarks say, and I know how the machine performs with Windows.  Leopard is definitely slower.  I guess I'll have to wait until x.5.2 comes out, hopefully we'll see some performance gains.

The other thing is that looking at the TDP of Intel's new chips, I don't really see the huge energy savings over Motorola's chips.  It looks like at 3.2 GHz they are as bad as the old P4 Extreme Edition chips.  I'm beginning to wonder what the real motivation was behind the switch, probably profit. 

Easton Velomax Vista SL Wheelset Sucks

So a few posts ago I talked about the Tirreno Razza 900 bike I got from Performance. I still love my bike, everything is great, except for the wheels. Now I know that I am 250 lbs, and I know that I ride a minimum of 75 miles a week. I ride hard. All of these thing shouldn't matter for a good aluminum wheelset.

So what happened? It all started a few months ago. I was riding to work and I hear this loud noise.  I figured I had just rolled over a rock and it plinked off my frame.  No biggie, just a little chipped paint.   But then I heard a sound like plinko, the spoke had broken.  These are beefy looking spokes, but the nipples are not double butted, that doesn't matter.  The spoke had broken about 10 mm above the nipple.  Not at the bend, and not in the middle.  I took it in, the guys at Performance were great, they suggested that maybe there was a defect in one of the spokes.  OK I thought, stuff happens.  They replaced the spoke and off I went.

Two days ago, I was riding home from work, this time I was on totally smooth pavement, the plinko game in my back wheel started up again.  I just knew it was the replacement spoke.  What are the odds of multiple spokes breaking?  But just as I had hoped it wasn't, another spoke had popped.  I had been told several times by friends that the Mavic Open Pro wheels are the best for hard riders, so when I took the bike back to Performance again, I bought a new wheelset.  I'm still waiting for it to come in, but I'll post about it when I get it.

The problem?  I have a pair of 5 or 6 year old Ritchey DS Pro wheels on the Specialized I bought from a friend a few years ago.  I rode that bike hard before I got this one.  I have never broken a spoke.  I bought a vintage Italian steel bike, I rode that pretty hard before it got stolen, I never broke a spoke.  I bought a pair of Mavic Kyserium (sp?) wheels for my mountain bike and the spokes have never broken.  Even the cheap wheels that I replaced with the Mavics never broke, came out of true, sure.  But popped spokes, never.

Basically that wheelset sucks.  I'm looking forward to riding the open pros.

Barack Obama Wins Iowa!!!!

Word, Up!