After my previous trouble installing new RAM, I re-ordered the component from a source recommended on every single computer message board I read in my search for answers. And it worked! I would like to issue a whole-hearty recommendation for Crucial Memory. They walk you through selecting the right component for your computer, deliver quickly for a (lower than my store bought) price and (unlike my store bought component) IT WORKS.
This week, I will attempt to install Wubi once more. (crosses fingers)
Monday, July 23, 2007
Computer Upgrade: Installing RAM
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Review
If there ever was a reason to learn how to do expandable posts, this is IT. I finished the final Harry Potter book yesterday. General opinion: WOW.
Click below for detail. LOTS OF SPOILERS! Be warned.
Holy body count Batman! JKR certainly didn't pull any punches did she? I rarely get teary-eyed at books but there were at least two points where I had to put the book down for while or I would completely lose it.
Things I loved:
It opens on Voldemort. A lot of people have complained about it being a slow start but honestly, this didn't drag for me like some parts of HBP did. I thought showing him casually killing the Muggle Studies Prof had the effect intended (shock).
Dudley not being a total prat to Harry.
7 Harry Potters! (One for each book?)
HEDWIG! MOODY! Two down before page 80.
Even though the overall tone was dark, this book had the most LOL lines for me. I don't know what that says about my sense of humor.
Dumbledore left them stuff! Weird nonsensical stuff.
The Ministry falling & the whole sub-plot with the round-ups. The image of the witch & wizard on the throne of naked human bodies was my first (shudder) moment.
The house-elf sub plot paying off with Kreacher & (sniff) Dobby. "Here Lies A Free Elf" I had to put the book down for a while then.
The Trio getting really sick of one another while on the run.
Nagini coming out of thew old lady. YUCK!
Ron running away & coming back --> Ron destroying that first Horcrux. Very effecting scene. I glad they dealt with Ron's perspective here. He really did need to permanently deal with his feelings on insecurity and here he did it under great duress.
Ron & Hermione - I can take or leave this relationship but I did really like how it was presented in this book. Their banter was very endearing and their first kiss (in the middle of a battle) was hilarious.
Luna's Dad, yah! Luna's Dad sells them out...not so yah. But the image of Luna's bedroom with paintings of all of them? How sweet is that?
I really liked "The tale of the Three Brothers" aside from plot & exposition, I thought it a nice little parable about how you can't cheat Death in the long run.
Malfoy Manor: I liked that the Malfoys were on the outs & insanely desperate to get a break. And Hermione's torture scene...yikes.
Harry's decision to go after the Horcruxes instead of the Hallows. At the time, yeah big growing up moment but I also think this is the first moment we see Harry as being worthy to bring together & weild the three Deathly Hallows (as he can take or leave them unlike others *cough*Dumbledore*cough*)
Gringotts & the escape - probably the most disposable of the action! sequences I think. It was really good (until you read the rest of the book).
Dumbledore's brother rocks! And I liked that Dumbledore had some pretty serious character flaws, things that had been effecting events for a very long time.
Neville's blase recounting of the events at Hogwart's that year make me long for the fanfiction of these events. It was a great scene and showed how much Neville's really grown in the last three books.
The whole Battle of Hogwarts sequence: OH MY GOD! AWESOME. All the profs chipping in, all the students staying to fight, all the adults showing up to help, all of the dead: Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Remus, Tonks and (omg!sniff) Fred. And those are just the ones I remember.
Snape (sniff). You were a bastard but you were always Lily's (and therefore Dumbledore's) bastard. When he conjured a Patronus for Dumbledore and said "Always", well, that was my second teary-eyed moment. And I'm not a big Snape-fan.
NEVILE KILLED NAGINI FOR THE WIN!!!!
Molly Weasley took out Bellatrix Lestrange like yesterday's laundry.
Ok, Voldemort killing Harry but totally not, then Harry showing up again. I can't keep it straight. All I know, Harry rocked. He made Voldemort look like a total pansy by the end.
The Malfoys surviving. They never helped because it was right. Rather, they were riding the whirlwind and at any moment they chose what would buy them safety for that moment. For Narcissa & Draco, that is very consistent with how they've been portrayed. Lucius, well, Azkaban changes a person, doesn't it? I liked they were kinda lost but together at the end. And that 19 years later Draco was still kinda a prat.
The epilogue was OK. I liked that she gave up more characters to play with (and certain fans are certainly running with that one) but I dunno, it was a pretty abrupt shift in tone from the rest of the book.
Overall, 9 of 10. Possibly my favorite of the series, I need to think on it a bit more. And, I can't wait for the movie of this. There's so much potential for awesomeness on the screen.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Overheard at Work Today
“Maggot-brained flesh bags” – 2 co-workers discussing their D&D group
This will be going on my “Sometimes, Working With a Bunch of Guys Can Be Disturbing” List.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Heat Treat Coolness
In yet another example of “Why Jessica’s Job is Cool”, I thought I’d share something that recently caught me eye on a supplier visit.
The particular location was a heat treater. I had never visited one before so I found the site interesting with its ginormous flame-spurting ovens and quenching vats. However, a rather small piece of equipment caught my interest. Through an opening less than a foot square, there was red glowing and bubbling goo. 
A co-worker identified it as molten cyanide salt. We do not use this particular technique for our parts but it’s just fantastic looking isn’t it? Also, note the sign in the background “NOTICE: Do Not Add Water”. In addition to being highly toxic, cyanide salts are reactive with water. Both are reasons it’s not commonly done.
There don’t appear to be many sources of information about this technique on-line except for salt-bath equipment dealers and a whole bunch of warnings say “TOXIC: DO NOT DO”. I did however find this excerpt from the 1926 Machinist’s Handbook. They have 1 whole paragraph on this form of heat treating.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Movin' On Up..
While reviewing my visitor statistics today, I made a discovery….
I’ve been blogrolled! I'm on the right under the "Ejectia" heading. How cool is that?
Thank you!
*is off to go explore blogroll further*
Blog Improvement
In an effort to improve this blog, I’m considering add a photograph to my blog-header. This is a test post because I’m not quite sure which to choose. One of my pet peeves is clashing web page elements so I want to make sure the picture is works with my template. And the candidates are:
Moonrise
Clouds
Witches’ Broom Nebula
Carina Nebula
Vines
Hmmmm....
Updated:
Well, it's going to be Moonrise or Carina. Witches Broom is too dark. Vines is too yellow. And Clouds blends in a little too well.
Updated2:
Moonrise for it is!
Wednesday Miscellaneous
Very miscellaneous today.
1) In anticipation for the new Harry Potter book, I give you the Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom generator! My results:
Severus Snape kills Ron shortly after discovering a new lost book of the Bible
Get your Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom
2) Why we can’t land people on Mars (via Universe Today). I remember reading Bob Zubrin’s “The Case for Mars” thinking there’s got to be a catch because this sounds so feasible. I think this here is the catch. Due to the thinness of Mar's atmosphere, most of the standard landing techniques wouldn’t slow down a manned vehicle enough to land safely.
3) 100 Open Source Downloads: Great tools for free. Some of these I've come across in my Ubuntu-switch research.
4) Working as an engineer, you see many warning signs and labels. This is one of my favorites:
Because the last thing you want is your hand in a 400-ton stamping press that shakes the whole building when it is working. Link to full post.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Ubuntu Migration – Another Consideration
In addition to some of my difficulties installing Ubuntu (most of which are due to the fact I can’t be bothered to learn the system requirements first), there is one rather large pain-in-the-neck with moving to away from Windows. Again, this is my fault...for having a Napter To-Go subscription. Apparently, this service only works with Windows Media Player which is (surprise, surprise) not a standard Ubuntu application.
I only got the subscription a few months ago but I’ve downloaded 275 songs since then. These are licensed so you have to log on every 2 weeks in order to be able to play the songs. Unfortunately, I can’t just buy all of them in one go and eliminate the license expiring issue.
How can I choose between “The Pogues” and “The Amazing Rhythym Aces”? Between “Screaming Trees” and “The Duo-Tones”? Talk about comparing apples to oranges. I’ve spent the last several days listening to music, trying to decide which ones to leave behind. And do you know how many I’ve deleted? 3 out of 275. Crap.
Tech Hit List
Hmmm, I haven’t done one of these in a while.
1) New Spacesuits from MIT: Researchers are working on developing a revolutionary spacesuit that could allow for greater mobility & dexterity for the astronaut. Not quite ready to go but very cool.
2) The previously mentioned Genesis II inflatable module launched successfully and has already begun sending pictures back. Here’s my favorite so far.
3) Ubuntu Competition? Great idea. I looked around at other distributions of Linux when I ran into my RAM memory troubles. Although many looked good and came with a bunch of applications, no one could touch the documentation, help forums and we-assume-you’re-a-beginner stance of Ubuntu.
4) Article on throttle-down engines. New NASA research in variable acceleration rockets. This is a good example of NASA doing what it does best. Very cool.
5) More Farscape!!!! How awesome is this? (Not strictly tech but too cool to not mention)
In conclusion, I give you Full Metal Aztec: 
Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix, Movie
WARNING: If you have not read the book or seen the movie, this post contains spoilers about plot, etc.
Ok, now this is my favorite (so far) of the Harry Potter books. Needless to say I was anxious to see how the movie compared. My worries were for nothing. It was just as good as the trailers led me to believe.
Nit-picks
1) Sirius Black's death: In the book, Bellatrix pushes him into the veil and is very clearly at fault for intentional homicide. The movie makes it seem like he just fell in accidentally during the fighting.
2) Ginny's Harry Smack-down: While I understand they couldn't include everything, this to me was an important reminder about Ginny's past and would have added some weight to some of the scenes at Grimmauld Place.
3) Neville's Parents: I missed the scene at the hospital where we see how broken the Longbottom's were by their torture. I missed seeing Neville's reaction. The conversation they did include was an OK substitute but it left people who haven't read the books with the impression the Longbottoms were dead.
10 Things They Got Completely Right:
10) The Daily Prophet Transitions - Fantastic way to both get rid of some exposition & move from scene to scene.
9) The Twins Exit from Hogwarts - No swamp but they really didn't need it. The fireworks destroying all the proclamations was visually stunning.
8) Neville Awww! - Matthew Lewis has done a very good job over the course of the movies portraying and here, he outdoes himself. He conveys Neville's hesitation but also his heroic spirit. Excellent.
7) Bellatrix Lestrange - Helena Bonham Carter was every bit as bat-shit crazy and vicious as I imagined when reading the books.
6) Background Inclusions - From the goat at the Hogshead to Grawp to the Inquisitorial Squad, Yates managed to pack a ton of little things in without taking up time & dialogue doing it. This really made it seem like less was cut from the book. I am curious to see how this skill is applied to the 6th movie.
5) The Trio Acting Together - Before the movie was released, I heard an Emma Watson interview where she mentioned Yates was the first director to really play up the relationship between the Trio. She was right. Ron & Hermione were especially fantastic. And Daniel Radcliffe was absolutely fantastic.
4) Everybody Else Acting - The entire ensemble was utilized in every scene they were in. I think Yates may be the first director to so noticeably expect them to perform in the background and to hit very specific notes. Every single scene with the DA, in the common rooms, and classrooms everyone was noticably improved even with the camera wasn't on them. Bonnie Wright especially did brilliantly.
3) Battle At The Ministry - Perfect. I loved how spooky it was, how obviously out-classed the kids were, how Lucius & Bellatrix tag-teamed them with the evil and how original a wizarding battle looked. If the battle for Hogwarts in HBP is half as good, I'll be satisfied.
2) Luna Lovegood - Perfect look. Dead-on voice. She hit it out of the park with every scene she was in and got some of the best lines of the movie.
1) Umbridge - This movie would not work if Umbridge wasn't just as evil, sanctimonious and viscerally repugnant as in the book. This movie did work because Imelda Staunton exceeded even my most ambitious expectations. She was deluded, bureaucratic, controlling, and god help her, pink.
So, on the whole good movie & excellent book-to-movie transition. Based on this installment, I'm very glad David Yates will be returning to direct Year 6.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Summer Reading + 2 Other Items
When movies end and computers crash, there’s always books.
1) Read “Parachute Infantry” by David K. Webster. Memoir of a former member of the acclaimed Easy Company. A pretty good read. What’s best about this book is Webster never claims to be an objective outsider to either the war or the men he served with. He clearly presents his opinions and his reasons for them while at the same time giving a whirlwind of detail about life on the front line in WWII. Very enjoyable.
2) Currently reading “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. Man, this is weird. I mean, it’s a good weird but yikes. The stories about how all the old gods ended up in America are so horrifyingly wistful and shockingly morbid. Neil Gaiman shares with Terry Pratchett the uncomparable ability to be simultaneously funny, profane, reverent and cynically optimistic while still telling a fantastic story. One of the most disturbing, entertaining, mind-bending reads in a long while. And I’m only a third into it.
3) Received my summer reading order from Amazon. Check it out.
The Buried Book by David Damrosch
1634: The Baltic War by David Weber & Eric Flint
Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists by Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales
An Army of Davids by Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit)
"2 Other Items"
1) The latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie may have been onto something with the whole green flash thing. Check it out. (via NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day)
2) “Transformers”: Wow! Seriously, this is the best movie I’ve seen all summer. It never tries to be anything more than a popcorn action movie BUT it’s a very, very well done popcorn action movie. It was also extremely funny. There were several scenes where everyone in my (packed) theater just lost it. Sam’s parents especially knocked it out of the park. Completely wild and wonderful ride.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Recent Activities
1) Well, other attempts to install Ubuntu failed miserably. So, I did (yet more) research and realized I could just add more RAM to my computer. My computer manual had some very simple instructions and a local computer store had some compatible parts. However, once again, all was not as it seemed. My audio device cannot be found when I install the new RAM card. I have no idea why but it prevents ($#*&$!) Windows from booting correctly. Hopefully, a friend of a co-worker can help me out. I’m also checking with Dell about problems installing more memory. If it turns out there’s Dell-only memory allowed or something is installed that my computer can’t live without, I’m going to be writing a very nasty letter about how Dell should clearly state such requirements in manuals and on-line help sites.
2) “Cars”: It’s a bit odd but I totally missed this when it came out last year. Not sure why. Once again, Pixar seamlessly weaves a good moral into a good story. The world populated by various mechanical creatures was very well-constructed and detailed. Also, hiring Paul Newman to voice the older racer car was a stroke of brilliance. Good for Pixar, ten times better than anyone else’s “kids” movies.
3) “Live Free or Die Hard”: Bruce Willis* as John McClane is worth a full-price ticket any day. Very good action movie. I liked the hacker-sidekick but I like actor Justin Long in pretty much everything. This role was well-suited to his talents although I could have done without the CCR bashing. I especially liked that both the daughter and the hacker characters were not super- action-heroes but fought back & responded to crisis in more realistic but effective ways. The only real weakness was the villain. The actor played him like Anakin Skywalker going Darth (ie – whiny and self-righteous). That said, the action scenes were fantastic and well spaced out throughout the film. Another plus for me was the way John McClane fights versus everyone he was up against. They had the moves, training and equipment. One thing shown in every single fight was that those things could be a bug not a feature. In this movie, the bad guys expect McClane to fight like they are prepared to fight. However, John McClane fights like an underdog, no-holds barred, grasping every bit of luck and desperately innovative. Again, a very good action movie.
4) Read Jack Campbell’s “Dauntless”: This is the first in a new series from Campbell. It’s about a long-lost war hero revived from stasis to find he has been idolized by the military fighting a desperate war in the intervening hundred years. Very good main character, excellent world-building, and very, very good space battles. Campbell does an excellent job of showing how the technology of the fleet effects their tactics and strategy without resorting to excessive techno-babble. Based on this one, I’m looking forward to the remaining books. A fun bit of military sci-fi.
5) Several of my co-workers went to a preview showing of “Transformers” Monday night. Their comments: “Awesome”, “Best movie I’ve seen in last 5 years” AND “Even my wife liked it”. From geeks’ mouths to God’s ears.
*Hopefully, you do not need a link to know who Bruce Willis is.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Space News
Interesting article on the Pioneer anomaly. Two space probes currently exiting our solar system are slowing down for reasons no one can fully explain. The article goes through some of the latest thinking and research as to why this is happening.
Update on developing liquid mirror telescopes on the moon. There’s been some very intriguing developments here that make this very plausible in the next 10-15 years.
Bigelow Aerospace will (hopefully) launch Genesis II tomorrow. This is their second inflatable space module design (the third is already in the works). The first was inflated successfully, sent back some cool pictures and demonstrated the feasibility of inflatable modules for spacecraft design. More information is at the Bigelow website, including some proposals for human-capable modules.
Op-Ed from UK’s Independent on the dangers of attempting to contact alien civilizations (via Speculist. Considering my previous concerns, I’m glad more people starting to ask questions about whether it is a good idea to brazenly announce our existence to the galaxy at large. It’s not that I think we should hide. What disturbs and worries me is that this decision is being made by a few idealistic scientists without any larger deliberation or say-so from the rest of humanity. One of Western civilizations greatest features is our debating of controversial issues and ideas. This act could change human civilization but the decision is being made for us without an appropriate level of debate.
My goodness, these are interesting times, aren’t they?
Monday, June 25, 2007
What I Did With My Weekend pt 2
(the not-computer related stuff)
1) “John Tucker Must Die” Watched this last night after computer drama. I really needed a laugh and this movie delivered. Very funny with several laugh out loud moments. The title character was portrayed interestingly. He was a very effective combination of charming and ridiculous. I mean, while his treatment of the three girls was horrible, you could see exactly why they were all so taken with him. Definitely an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes. However, it was jarring to watch Jenny McCarthy play the mother of a sixteen year old.
2) Read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s "WE" over the weekend. Apparently, this book was an inspiration for Orwell in writing 1984. You can see some plot similarities but the presentation of "WE" is very different. It’s written as a diary of an engineer in a communist future, which makes for disjointed, rambling and thought-provoking reading. What’s really interesting is that the author took great pains to show how this man viewed, intepreted and interacted with the world in mathematical and scientific terms. The fact that the greatest literary work of this society is a Time Chart gave me flashbacks to Harlan Ellision’s "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man". It makes for stimulating and horrifying reading. There’s one passage in particular that made me just stop for a moment:
“But in the thirty-fifth year before the founding on the One State, our modern petroleum-based food was invented. True, only 0.2 percent of the population of the earthly sphere survived. But in exchange for all that - the cleansing of thousand-year filth - how glistening the face of the earth has become!“Yikes.
3) Ok, this is a bit old but I had to share. When I saw this in the grocery store:
My first thought was, when did Yoda start a chocolate company? (Yes, I know it’s not spelled right.) Link to full post.
Ubuntu Install – Not quite so simple
I spent most of the weekend preparing to install Ubuntu via Wubi and attempting to do so. Needless to say, my install did not work. I attempted 3 times to install using Wubi but each time the process locks up at the same point (fairly far along in the installation process).
But all is not lost. One on the great things about Ubuntu is the help community. I posted a request for help at the Wubi help forum, and got some feed back. My problem is that I run out of memory during the swap.disk creation, likely due to my small RAM size. Honestly, I should have checked out the RAM requirements more throughly before trying Wubi.
Tonight, I plan to install Xubuntu which is a lower performance version of Ubuntu. If that doesn’t work, than I’m going to have to something complicated to make this work (which is a bit scary, but hey, that’s why I’m here). If there’s no progress by the end of this week, it may be time for plan B.
If anyone is considering using Wubi to test drive Ubuntu, here’s some tips from my weekend experience:
1) Defragment your hard drive before downloading Wubi. This can minimize some of the more common memory errors. It also helps if you clean up your hard drive before defragmenting by deleting unused programs, files, etc.
2) Know your computer components and settings. Aside from the obvious reasons for doing this, there are some configurations which have trouble with Wubi so there may be some extras things you need to check out before deciding to install.
3) Have a digital camera ready. If the computer gets stuck, you can take a picture to post on the help forum. Also, it helps to get a picture of the log files (Alt+F4) during the install process. There are several examples in the help forum, which reminds me...
4) READ THE WUBI HELP FORUM. This lets you know what the common problems are and the limitations of the Wubi install. Also, the previously covered errors give a lot of good advice of how to detect and identify problems. This proved especially helpful for me in sorting through my issue. And, most importantly, you learn how to communicate problems if you have them (ie - what info do you to include for a clear response).
5) Wubi is not intended to be a permanent install. It should be used to determine if you want to permanantly install Ubuntu on your computer. So, please read up on eventually converting to Ubuntu to get an idea of what you’re in for if you like what you see.
Even with my difficulties, I consider this a relatively positive experience. I’ve learned several things during this process, some of which I expect will continue to be useful. I’m considering doing a post on the random tricks that I found in my reading. There wouldn’t be anything wow-worthy but for the newbie-user (such as myself), it might be interesting.
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