One endless episode of curb your enthusiasm only with an engineer instead

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MSN replacement?
For some reason Microsoft doesn't want people to use windows live messenger(as evidenced by the way the program won't install at all, and you need to use the most recent version to use the network, a new version that doesn't freakin work!). Thus I'm on the lookout for a reasonable program that can access the MSN network as well as check my email constantly so I know when new mail comes in and from who.

In completely unrelated news, I've got shit all over me due to cleaning my mums gutters out. There was grass growing on the entire south side of her house in the gutters.

Best xkcd comment ever
"I discovered a truly remarkable proof of P=NP, but the margin of this comment is too narrow to contain it."

Back from Wiluna!
Yay. I just had my first swing at the mine and things look pretty well. I'm working 1 week on 1 week off. Basic way things are going is I fly out 7AM on friday mornings, then work friday-thursday and get paid for those days with 12 hr shifts. Then next friday the plane leaves about 9 or so and I'm back in Perth by 11AM and can chill till the next week. The whole deal works out pretty well for me. I actually quite enjoy working up there. I'm a good peon. Zug Zug!

The job is as a met tech, though with a maybe possibility of getting a better job after I've been there a while and the mine starts proper production in a few months. It's not really using my eng degree, but it's still good experience and decent money. I'm working on a lead mine, but they give me a whole bunch of safety equipment, plus I have to shower after work (it's strange being ordered to use shampoo when showering as part of your job). I also get a vaguely post apocalyptic feel at work, because there is basically a line over which you can't go without a respirator on(Lead dust....zombie inducing virus, what's the difference?). I also feel pretty good because I spend about half my day there helping with packing, mostly focusing on making sure all the environmental rules get carried out and all the data organised(and jesus there are a load of them. The amount of danger stickers and unbreakable numbered bolts we use is insane).But hey, the world needs minerals and it's better we mine them here instead of Africa or china where the miners aren't given a bunch of safety equipment.

My bosses are pretty nice guys. One of whom reminds me of just about every mild mannered british guy you ever see in movies and the other of every image you ever get of a building site manager.Meanwhile, the shift manager and I seem to spend half our time mocking each other, but that works out pretty well.

I'm trying to find a sharehouse right now, main places I'm using are gumtree and just tried easyroommates.com. Thus far I had one good bite from gumtree, but they don't have internet access hooked up so I'd need to use wireless. Given how much I use the net I'm not sure that would really be workable. I'm crashing at mums right now for a week or two, but I'm really going nuts without constant internet access and the lack of privacy.

I can totally imagine this conversation happening

Why do I have the feeling I'm going to one day have this conversation with my ultra-feminist ex.

It's 4:21
Wristcutters is good. Very very strange, but good.

That is all, keep going about your business.

fucking bad night
I cracked my Spur gear on my reprap. Unless I can get a new one machines i'm officially fucked for good. Of all the pieces that break the one that can't be printed(trust me, I tried).

Anyway, still hunting for a job, and it's starting to irk me. I'm figuring to hell with engineering, i'm just going to wander perth and find a waitering job or something.

I'm currently watching wristcutters, it is an interesting movie I gotta say.

Back
Went out tonight

parade was good, though is always seems like they drag it on longer than it should by pausing the march.

Poe's night at scotsman was ok

Sin was packed, and I mean PACKED. I've never seen it that busy in 5 years. As in busier than when major bands are playing. It was 10 meters out the door queue at one point. The entire place was 100% packed more than I've ever seen it, even more people than a big spank night. Took Jerrica, so was nice.

fuck yeah

The fuckin shrike.

Almost finished with the fall of hyperion. It is getting increasingly awesome (and messed up)

Akbar gets all the best lines

RIP geocities
Geocities died today.

My first website was there, I forget what the site's address was, but it ended with 6774.

There is an archive of geocities pages already up and they tried to gather as many of the old files together before the great dying. Have a looksie

Also, they have a page made of 100% under construction signs. It is the most awesome page in interwebs history

I found out this is all organised by Jason Scott. An undoubtably great man who was the maker of the BBS documentary (you should all go watch it, even if you missed that whole era like I did. I bought the DVD too, even though he made it all available on youtube and archive.org)

Cutest wedding ever
What happens when two lolita's get married?

So much pink!

Some calculations to make people calm the fuck down
Ok this data is based on the US, it probably has errors but just deal with it.

Prevalance of dystonia is approximated at 152 per million
152*300 million americans= 45600 in the US

Assuming a constant distribution, average lifespan is roughly 70 years and people get it at random (actually not true, but for estimations)=45600/70=651

651 people get it every year by pure average, assuming people get it once and it stays forever.

this girl got it 2 weeks after her shot(odds are 1 in 26)

651/26=25 people got it within that 2 week period

how many vaccines have floated around is a hard number to quantify, I've read as low as 30 million as high as 80. I'll be average and go for 50 million in the past 2 months(ie 4 2 week blocks).

same calc again.
50/(75*4)=160,000 people in that age had it in that 2 week group. Odds of overlap there are high in the extreme.

Ok. Now can people please calm the fuck down.

And it's working again
Ok, after 1 month of ripping my hair out I got my reprap printing again. The shifts at work probably haven't helped. Ok, I now feel slightly less depressed.

Current Mood: cheerful

It's business time (or, how I learnt the stop worry and begin designing sex toys)
I finally got around the designing a sex toy that the reprap can make. It's actually a mold which you pour either rubber or medical grade silicon into. It's pretty small (2 cm wide and 10cm long) but that's mostly to allow people to use a makerbot. I'll get around that soon though. Making it thicker is much easier than longer (which itself isn't that hard, no pun intended)

Anyway, more detail at my reprap blog at www.freeasinsteins.com so click here for business time!"

My phone's charger has vanished, it's really annoying cos I haven't gotten it working all day long.

On the plus side, looks like I've got a 50% chance of some longer work in the next few months. Downside is that i'll be gone for a month.

I just cracked a piece of my reprap.

Hell yeah I can just go to the artifactory and make new ones.

MWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

cough cough.

Oh, and "Moon" is a good movie, go see it.

No, obama doesn't deserve the prize
No Obama should not have been awarded the nobel prize. Yes he's been a positive influence for peace in the world. But you know what he's done? He's done his job, if it weren't for 8 years of W he wouldn't be seen as that deserving.

Will obama make the world a more peaceful place? I'd guess yes. Is he an order of magnitude a better president than Mccain was likely to have been? yes (Mccain's choice of Palin made his judgement absolutely untrustable)

The Peace prize will always be problematic, although that's just the way it is, there are 5 prizes (and an economic prize granted in memorial of nobel, though not actually a nobel prize), three are sciences , two (/three) are for non sciences for balance.

On the plus side, the three science prizes were pretty interesting this year, and we got one australian.

Oh my
First up, new post on www.freeasinsteins.com , Basically I got a PID controller working better for my extruder, but problem is that my firmware is still shitting itself on a regular basis. I gotta get to the bottom of it. I'm beginning to suspect that it has something to do with my hardware, given the problem appeared around the time I did a motor swapout and built a new heater system.

It would appear that I'm rather bored. This morning helped scavenge some more stuff for the artifactory. Spent the afternoon fixing the PID controller and the damn firmware still doesn't work properly.

In a completely unrelated note, the internet is very wierd.