Google whack: cromulent minuend.

So I've got my ubuntu server up and running. So far it's just acting as a file (samba) and print (cups) server for my local network. I got brave, though, and poked through my firewall/router to let ssh traffic through. I registered at no-ip.com and I think I have their ip updater client running, so now I can ssh to benvis.no-ip.org and poke around my files from an offsite computer. I was thinking of trying to setup my laptop to automatically back itself up to the ubuntu server, and I came across a nice how-to backup a windows pc to an ubuntu server over ssh. I'll be working through it later, but I thought I'd let the tubes know what I was up to.

There you have it, folks. Proof positive that spam is evil.

I was involved in the production of this video which was presented at the USC Neuroscience Graduate Program 2007 retreat.

Through no real fault of my own, I am now the owner of an iPod Nano.

Maybe it's because I'm a control freak, or maybe I'm just a bad person, but I don't really like software that Just works^TM. I want to be directing software to work, not watching it just kind of do its own thing. As such, iTunes and me don't get along. A brief googling (they hate it when you do that) turned up no real advice. Pretty much, everyone pats you on the butt (via html, of course) and says don't worry sweetie, it'll be alright. It just works!

So has anyone figured out how to bend the iPod to your will? I am willing to do the learning to make it work, and here's what I want to make it do:

I want to rip cds and put them on my ipod. I want to download podcasts (is that the right term? Npr shows are always saying I can download them somehow). I want to be able to do the downloading and ripping on whatever computer I feel like using without having to mess around. Any suggestions?

I'm in Galway, Ireland. I've been doing a lot of driving (on the left!) lately, but soon we're off to the Aran Islands, where there'll be no driving for me.

I'm leaving for Ireland (the republic thereof, to be specific) tomorrow. I'll be back in two weeks. Leave me a comment and I'll drink an Irish Stout just for you!

So, Brik Wars sounds like a whole lot of fun. Or at least it sounds like a whole lot of attempt to recapture happy moments from childhood. Either way, it makes me want to go out and buy LEGO stuff. Man, now I just need to get my old lego collection out of my Mom's attic. She'd probably appreciate that. And if this doesn't look like fun to you, then you're probably not half the nerd I thought you were:

I haven't been posting about Cal Rugby mostly because I'm no longer in the area. I tried to go to the UCLA tournament, but I'm kind of stupid so I showed up about 10 minutes after the tournament was over. I can, however, offer a brief summary of the season.

Cal took the national championship in a finals match against BYU with a final of 37-7. Cal took the 'Rugby World Cup' (awarded to the overall point leader in two matches against University of British Columbia) with two wins over UBC. Cal lost only one game by only 6 points, and that wasn't against another school but against the 2006 Rugby Super League champions.

In all, it was another excellent season. Goooo Bears!

Do you love to knulla? The owner of this particular automobile probably does.

I saw that outside a burger joint in Santa Monica. Camera phone + bluetooth laptop = win!

A hipster walks into a bar...

From Slaughterhouse-Five, Or The Children's Crusade : A Duty-dance with Death

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1922 - 2007

This game reminded me of the oldschool game called Harmony. Good times.

I was going to post about Senator Chuck Schumer (D New York) and his imaginary middle-class friends, the Baileys. I got sidetracked, though, by the New Yorker caption contest.

Are you bothered by the radical liberal slant of the media? Or maybe a better question is: are you bothered by the radical liberal slant of people on the internet? People in general? The Bible itself? Well, now there's a place for you to write stuff: behold, Conservapedia. Note most of the touted 4,500 articles are a sentence or less in length and contain no citations (so there's plenty for you to do). For some reason, I'm reminded of Bender from Futurama: "Yeah! Well, I'm gonna go build my own theme park. With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the park!"

The debate pages are kind of interesting. As an example, the "Should Creationism/Intelligent design be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution in public schools?" debate manages to be pretty even-handed.

As part of the general effort to recruit new students, we had a graduate student research symposium today. After the symposium, we took the recruits on a photo scavenger hunt. It started on USC central campus, but then we hopped on the train up to hollywood and took wacky pictures. I mention this only as a vehicle to brag about my second celebrity siting. In front of the Kodak theater were David Beckham and Posh Spice. Woohoo.

I might even post some of the photos from the scavenger hunt if I can get them from the camera owner.

Update: here's the celebrity photo.

So thanks to Samay and a few other people, I was inspired to head over to LACMA (that's LA County Museum of Art) to check out an exhibit of Magritte and Magritte-inspired work. There was a pretty long line to get tickets (at seventeen bucks for students, 20 for general), and an even longer line to actually get in. this was at, oh, about 1:40 pm. Take note of that time before you click the next link.

About five minutes later, people seemed to be exiting the exhibit en masse. On their lips were incredible rumors of some kind of arthropod invasion. You can imagine what I did upon seeing that lines already close to my threshold for waiting were growing ever-longer in concert with the mass exodus AND the fact that nobody was getting in the door. It's true. I gave up and went to look at art with no waiting and no cost of admission.

Now, today, it's all over the news. Be warned. The ladybugs are back, with a vengeance.

ps I linked to LA Times because they, at least, got the story right. For some reason the A.P. thinks this all happened on Friday.

So I got a Nintendo Wii a few weeks ago. I have, in addition to wii sports, the newest Zelda game, plus two gamecube games. I'm posting about it now because I got it hooked up to these here internets and now have a ravenous hunger for friend codes. I don't even know what that means, really, but it grips me.

Remember, if your clothes catch on fire, Stop, Drop and Roll. Like a cookie monster. Unless you're in hell. I've heard it doesn't work there.

Witness my new-found prowess with photoshop and illustrator! Behold: my gorgeous poster.