Thane Plambeck

Trustgenix acquired by HP

Greg's company, Trustgenix, has just been acquired by HP.

Congratulations, Greg, Atul, and team!

[ Greg and I are maybe going to write our paper on "The Model," which will explain how to start software companies, build them up, and sell them without venture capital or any outside investment, making tidy millions in the process. Here's another one, from a few years back. If we were really smart, we would keep it a secret. ]

Wrong place at the wrong time—a spider creeps under an Emacs CTRL-V

Page Down

I felt a slight squishiness, looked down, and there he was.

Network solutions DNS failure

I couldn't bring up this web site in a browser, but httpd's were running and an ssh session on my desktop for several days was still up. Four possibilities, in order of awfulness:

1) Someone hacked my machine and repurposed it to send spam or launch DoS attacks (it's happened before, but not in the last two years, despite my never upgrading the Linux version I'm running)

2) LLIC configuration changed somehow, must consult with Steve (awful only because Steve always ends up asking me questions about my configuration that I can't answer, then summarizes my cluelessness by asking me why I'm "not running Debian," in the same manner a person might ask why a child insists on wearing his shoes backwards...)

3) SBC messing with firewalls or other strange configurations

4) Temporary netsol DNS trouble

Thankfully, it was the last possibility:

We are currently experiencing a widespread DNS related outage. If you are attempting to contact us to report a product that is not working, please know that we are aware of the issue, and are doing everything we can to resolve all issues as quickly as possible.

Everything looks OK now.

Nebraska/Colorado, then Cirque du Soleil

With Grandpa, we watched the Nebraska-Colorado football game [30-3, NU, an unexpected blowout] at the loft until 6:30 remained in the third quarter.

Then it was time to leave for the 4pm Cirque du Soleil in San Francisco. It was set up in a series of colorful tents not far from SBC Park.

A miniaturized woman—(what does a person say, "dwarf," or "midget," or something else?)—appeared, tethered to five largish helium balloons. There wasn't quite enough buoyancy for her to float to the ceiling, so the master of ceremonies gave her push over the crowd, who helpfully pushed on her stockinged feet so that she would float back to the stage.

Prankster writes as ten year-old asking Senators for their favorite jokes

link

Jon Corzine's response:

"What did the number 0 say to the number 8?"

"Nice belt!"

* * * *
Added later Rick Santorum: "Although a favorite joke doesn't immediately come to mind, I do enjoy laughing."

[He's so lifelike, that Rick Santorum.]

Two trips

1) Went geocaching with Cole and Owen, following these clues to a treasure in our neighborhood. We found it after a longish walk around downtown Palo Alto, finding four historic markers that gave us some of the necessary coordinates for the treasure location itself. The log book in the treasure cache revealed that someone had been there just one day before us, "The Davidsons," who wrote that they did it on bikes.

2) Went to the doctor for a flu shot and hip trouble diagnosis, and came back with a lifetime prescription for this after my blood pressure came in at 150/90. It would be nice to know how to pronounce it.

Problem in a book with title "What to Expect on the ISEE"

Hoover Tower bathed in red light for the Big Game

Cole and Owen really wanted me to take a photo of this.

Creepy news in the San Jose Mercury News

They've got Beethoven's skull, or at least part of it, at San Jose State.

****

First, Beethoven's hair shows up in San Jose. And now, his skull.

It's true. Fragments that appear to come from the great composer's skull have surfaced in the home of a Danville businessman and will be on indefinite loan to the Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University.

For millions moved by Beethoven's music, it is not just an amazing event -- something like the bones of an apostle showing up after centuries. It also opens a new window into Beethoven's legendary medical problems, which helped shape his mind and music.

The center, which already owns a celebrated strand of Beethoven's hair, is to make the announcement today after coordinating six years of forensic tests, which seem to corroborate the authenticity of the bones.

``I am in awe,'' said Paul Kaufmann, a Danville businessman. His great-great-uncle, a Viennese doctor named Romeo Seligmann, secretly was given two large fragments and 11 smaller ones when the composer's remains were exhumed in 1863. (Beethoven died in Vienna in 1827.) Kaufmann said the bones will be loaned to the center ``in perpetuity.''

Starting today, they will be locked in a vault and made available for scientific research. The public will see them only in a still-to-be scheduled exhibit that will tell the story behind the bones and their scientific analysis...

****
This image in the newspaper of Beethoven's skull took my breath away:

sfgate article

NYT quotation of the day

"If a person is having a problem in life, someone who is 42 might not know where to go - 'Do I need acupuncture, do I need a new haircut, do I need to read Suze Orman?' " said Casey Greenfield, 32, a writer in Los Angeles, referring to the personal-finance guru. "Someone my age will be like, 'Do I need to switch from Paxil to Prozac?' "

Young, Assured and Playing Pharmacist to Friends (Amy Harmon)

Two cats

#1) Owen brought home a painting of a leopard he made in 2nd grade:

#2) Investigating the poor delivery of air from the Yosemite house heater/air conditioner into the house through the ducts under it, the repair guy told Gloria there was a "fresh carcass" under the house and that it's very likely the bobcat I managed to photograph prowling around the house in September actually lives under the house. "It wouldn't have been so nice to meet up with her there, in your crawlspace," he observed.

"You need to call pest patrol," he concluded.

Somehow I can't think of a largish feline predator as a "pest." Does the Orkin man really know how to deal with this?

Our friend the kitty cat pest

I'm glad I'm scared of spiders and declined to look into this matter myself.

SGI delisted

Today was the first day since 1986 that the stock of Silicon Graphics Inc., better known as SGI, has not been traded on the New York Stock Exchange....

link (via langreiter).

From that Penguin Classics Library list

Con men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld

Sounds good.

1081 to go.

I should finish Oliver Twist, first.

Penguin Classics Library

Today's NYT has this interesting article about a woman whose house burned down in a Los Alamos wildfire, taking her library of thousands of books with it. She spent $8000 to get started replacing her collection by buying the Penguin Classics Library at Amazon (1082 volumes).

"Wait! if you add just $2340 to your order, shipping will be free!"

Here's the complete list of books in the collection.

Why I'll probably drop my ACM membership again, as I have before

I joined again to get access to the papers that they've put online in the ACM Digital Library. It's a nice service, although I wish it convered more of the CS literature.

As a "member in good standing," I'm sent the flagship publication, the Communications of the ACM. Here's a large font quotebite from the Nov 2005 issue, on my desk:

Any attempt to deskill programmers would certainly be counterproductive (and counter-creative) to the world of software as we know it.

Ack. Whatever possible meaning is encoded in that horrible sentence [perhaps it should be called a "Communication," instead], it's going to depend on what the mysterious word "deskill" is supposed to mean, and it's not even a word.

Is more bad writing to be found in the IEEE Spectrum, or the Communications of the ACM?

Just wondering.

Lititz, PA

link

That stupid Tortoise guy—it's like he is stalking her!

Gloria found this note at an ice rink.

Ron Graham juggling

Ron Graham juggling
Originally uploaded by thane.

The mathematician Ron Graham juggling N pins (for N >> 3) with three different people.

[Cellphone photo taken at the INTEGERS conference in Carrollton, GA a few weeks ago]

Misc

1) I'm finding that ZZ Top played on the iPod nano stimulates me to actually work on the several math papers I'm trying to finish.

2) Lemony Snicket, in the Introduction to this book, writing "If you enjoy tedious stories, you may read the following paragraphs for your tedious enjoyment, and if you don't, don't," proceeds to offer the following:

A) "I have an adorable announcement!" cried the Kind of Teddy Bear Land. "In honor of Princess Buttercup's marriage to Prince Appletree, we will have a Teddy Bear parade throughout town square, which happens to be made of candy!"

B) "But if you're a wizard," asked Henry, "why can't you just defeat the Shadow Lord and his army of vicious porcupines with a wave of your wand?" "That's a good question, young Henry," replied Thistlewing. "You'd better sit down, because I'm going to take the next nine pages to explain what wizards can and cannot do in this particular land."

C) "Don't be silly!" cried the Long Division Worm. "Math is fun! Come with me and I'll show you!"

Added later: bookgasm review

Dialogue imagined after reading Queen Elizabeth's suggestion that "rescue helicopters" provide a 'suitably neutral' choice for 'casual conversation'

THANE: How do you do?

QE-II: Very well, thank you. How do you do?

THANE: Very well, thank you. [Pause. Followed by longer pause] Say—I've heard of some nice new rescue helicopters, you know, the kind used to save people's lives in the Andes, or on I-5, or whatever.

QE-II: Fascinating!