jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2009-11-30-0258Z

Today was a great day. Went with the Petaluma Paddlers and kayaked down Estero Americano to the (blocked) mouth, where we had a picnic lunch. The weather was gorgeous.

Yesterday wasn't bad either; solved 3 of the "easy" test problems at CodeChef, and snagged some tunas (prickly pear fruits) on a paddle down the Petaluma River. I'm fermenting them now, they'll be ready to try tomorrow.

Kona Pipeline Porter has been back on the grocery store shelves for at least a week now, here in the Bay area. If you can get it locally, give it a try. Coffee and beer in the same bottle, can't beat it. It's seasonal, only available for a few months each year. [comment]

2009-11-26-1937Z

Jogged along with the Petaluma Turkey Trot for a little over 3 miles of the 6.3-mile loop today, and I'm calling it my 5K for the year. I like having malleable goals... [comment]

2009-11-23-2116Z

Recoding a customer's website in almost-pure XHTML and CSS. The few noncompliant things I'm using, like rounded edges on some elements and a YouTube <embed> tag, I've hidden from the validators using Apache's SSI conditionals. The useragent strings to look for begin with W3C_Validator and W3C_CSS_Validator. It's cheating in a way, but I don't want to see all that junk every time I validate, I want to see the new junk that I'm not yet aware of. And the "Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict" and "Valid CSS!" links will not be visible on the final site anyway. [comment]

2009-11-17-1823Z

This morning as we were driving out of Willow Hot Springs, the gate had been left open and a new "No Trespassing" sign posted. Burning Man now own this land, and apparently don't want to share it with any outsiders. They also have a Black Rock Saloon in town, a private club for Burning Man staff and crew. Elitist? Naaahhhh... [comment]

2009-11-16-2033Z

Back to the Black Rock desert to see how it looks without Burning Man. Found Trego Hot Springs and other hot springs in the area known only to locals and adventurers. Bathed in one this morning with hundreds of little fish nibbling at my skin. [comment]

2009-11-13-1712Z

My carefully handcrafted Delicious.com bookmarker on my iTouch is failing. Specifically, it's getting a "Yahoo! 400 Bad Request". WTF? Did Yahoo kill Delicious?

Getting too soft. Forced myself to jog downtown this morning, but it's only 9 minutes away, so that's not enough. Got to find a way to stay in shape... might have to consider the Costco deal for 24 Hour Fitness, $300 for 2 years. Good for daily showers and cold nights. Might even be able to sleep in there occasionally, at night when the yoga room is empty and the lights are off. [comment]

2009-11-11-1100Z

The contest ended, and I still had 8th place in the US and 45th place worldwide, with 2.618 points out of a possible 6.0. Got to study up on algorithms and data structures so I can do better next time. [comment]

2009-11-11-0206Z

News articles say the Army ignored "red flags" they should have acted upon. But maybe it was deliberate; wouldn't be the first time. Remember Pearl Harbor, the result of goading Japan into attacking and then looking the other way as her planes headed to Hawaii. Now the U.S. Government, fearing the revolutionary spirit among once-free Americans who are waking up to find themselves in shackles, would much rather divert our outrage towards one another; and race or religion is always a good motivator. They could set off a few more wind-up toys like Hasan and watch the shit hit the fan... from their underground bunkers. [comment]

2009-11-10-0322Z

Got dunked in Tomales Bay yesterday, going out after a bit too much wine into ocean swells larger than anything I'd experienced yet in a kayak. I might have made it into shore myself, but didn't have to. The Petaluma Paddlers are a nice group to be with, and helped me overcome the hypothermia and get back into the bay, where a towline was attached and I was paced back to Nick's Cove.

Finally checked at the Petaluma P.D., and sure enough my bike had been taken there. Got it back without even having to pay a fine, as it wasn't impounded, just put into "lost and found". Everything seems to be as I left it, including the pants drying on the trailer.

Got about 2 and a half points in the programming competition, with only a day and change left to go. I'd like to solve at least one more of the problems before it's over, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got. Should do better next time. [comment]

2009-11-06-2114Z

The glasses I bought for $8 + $4.95 shipping from Zenni Optical work great. I got them last Saturday and have used them for brief periods, and it's tempting to wear them all the time outdoors, to see all the detail I've been missing. But I don't want to risk long-term damage to my eyes.

These $8 glasses, offered on several websites now, are an incredible bargain, and I wonder how much longer the likes of Lenscrafters can stay in business once the word gets out.

Made a Jambalaya last night from Emeril Lagasse's recipe, and it was pretty damned good. I thought I could double the recipe, because I didn't believe it was 4 servings as stated, but I realized once I got going that I couldn't double the rice and chicken stock. So it had double the meat and veggies and spices. Can't say I regret the mistake, especially since two people ate it all in one sitting. [comment]

2009-11-01-0926Z

Still haven't found a stack diagram of what Linux hands over to a signal handler. What I've managed to piece together, possibly accurately, is this (offsets indicate dwords, multiply by 4 for byte offset):

Offset   Contents          Example
0        return addr       0x0fffe420
1        signal number     0xb (11=segfault)
2        GS (?)            0 (start of interrupted task's registers)
3        FS (?)            0
4        ES (?)            0x7b
5        DS (?)            0x7b
6        EDI               0x08088000
7        ESI               0
8        EBP               0
9        ESP               0xbffffcbc
10       EBX               2
11       EDX               0xc
12       ECX               0x10
13       EAX               0xa
14       ?                 0xe
15       ?                 4
16       addr that faulted 0x08048131  (rep scasb)
17       CS (?)            0x73
18       eflags            0x00010206
19       ESP               0xbffffcbc
20       SS                0x7b

The signal number is also provided in EAX. All the above registers, including the flags and return address, can be modified by the handler. Very ugly and nonportable, but magical in its possibilities.

My brilliant idea of speeding up I/O using memory protection and signal handling failed. I still believe it has possibilities, but I need to find a way to profile what's going on. [comment]

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