We just had an earthquake, which, being in California isn't that big a deal, except the epicenter was maybe 6 miles from our place. Here's the USGS link. (Edit: the link broke. I guess the USGS site only keeps info about quakes up for a short time.) It wasn't huge, but being so close made it feel a lot more intense.

I guess UPS filmed a commercial in the driveway of the building in which I work this morning. Apparently it will air on ESPN prior to and during the upcoming NASCAR season. That basically makes me famous, right?

I wrote this up elsewhere, but I figure I'd better get as much exposure as possible if my career as a food critic is going to take off. So without further ado, my review of uWink at Hollywood and Highland center.

Nikki and I went to uWink in Hollywood to meet some friends for a birthday celebration. Being our friends, they were about an hour late, so we had ample time to hang out at the bar and observe two separate teen/tween birthday parties show up.

The servers fell all over themselves to take orders and such from us rather than letting us interact with the consoles for anything other than the handful of available games. My guess was that the more diners interact with the servers, the more they tip. An alternative may be that the system doesn't work that well and is slower and less efficient.

Our group eventually showed up and we went to a table. The kind of food on offer as well as the prices felt kind of incompatible with the atmosphere. The decor seemed to be aiming for a sort of night-club chic, the music was aimed at those of us in our late 20s, but the consoles and the clientele felt more like the local late-night diner after a high-school dance. I think everyone got a hamburger of one sort or another; I couldn't really imagine anyone ordering a fancy $30 entree at a place like this.

We sent in our drink orders first, under the strict instructions from our server that we shouldn't hit 'send' until we'd all chosen. This meant all our drinks would come out at once. All at once is nice for the servers, but not really the point of the "order whenever and we'll bring it right out" promise of the consoles. After carefully entering our names, and making sure each drink was matched to the correct name, and wrestling with the machine to convince it we really were all 21 or over, the order went in. A while later, the servers came out, and just started yelling each drink out so we could claim them. Except the server didn't actually pay attention. I had to wave my hand and yell to get my drink.

The same basic thing happened with the food. Twice the server came out to apologize for not having any turkey burger patties (nobody had ordered one). I opted for the sun-dried tomato aioli and balsamic reduction for the sauces on my burger. It arrived with ketchup. The burger was pretty good, although given the rigmarole we went through to precisely specify the food we wanted, it was weird that the food was so imprecise. Again, it was decent, although better burgers are available for less money.

Of course, the food isn't really the main draw of uWink. The digital entertainment was a mixed bag. The touch-screens worked, and weren't greasy or gross or anything. There were a couple games that worked for four people: One Pictionary clone and a Taboo-like game. The Pictionary clone had some bugs. The system transmitted the strokes of the drawing player to the guessing player with some network latency and with a surprising lack of fidelity. At one point I leaned accross the table, and the image seen by the person drawing didn't look much like the image presented to the guesser. The Taboo-like didn't actually show a list of taboo words, so you could say anything at all to get your partner to say the secret word.

Restaurant-wide games were a bit better. Trivia, picture memorization, and find the difference in the two similar picture games were all a hit. As a bonus, the score was projected on the wall so we could see how things were going.

So overall, the experience was novel but nothing I would drive to Hollywood again to repeat. The slick appearance couldn't really make up for the sloppy underpinnings, and the servers obviously didn't buy in to the concept. The concept of the place is pretty cool: A slick, hip spot for nice food and a bit of digital entertainment thrown in. The execution of the concept, however, still could use a lot of work.

I believe I've posted about the definite article before (it's "the"). I encounter its misuse in scientific texts written by non-native English speakers (understandably, as English is unusual in its use of the definite article). I've been asked to make comments on a text that seems to be using this word inappropriately, but I have trouble articulating why it is wrong, and how to correct this class of error. I don't want to use an example from the text I'm reading, so I'll have to make one up that is similar:

It typically rains on the plains in Spain. Driving on the roads can be difficult.

There are a number of alternatives that would make these sentences better, but I find it difficult to specify exactly what is wrong with these sentences. A thinking person could determine that "the roads" refers to the roads in the plains in Spain, as we were just talking about them being rainy, and it can be difficult to drive in rainy conditions. This seems like the wrong argument to make, though. If a thinking person could determine all that from what was given, what is the point of the second sentence at all? I think it should be more immediately clear which roads one is talking about:

It typically rains on the plains in Spain. Driving on the roads in the region can be difficult.

This is better, but it's still not that good.

It typically rains on the plains in Spain. Driving on the roads in this region can be difficult.

If it must be two sentences, this is how I would prefer to see it. Perhaps I've arrived at a rule: Use "this" or "these" when the meaning can be determined from a nearby noun. Use "the" when the meaning is clear from overall context. How's that?

At long last, two of my favorite publications in head to head competition!

Due to the time change, my birthday this year lasts 25 hours. Longest. birthday. ever!

The report on Gov. Palin's involvement with the disciplinary action against Mike Wooten is out. You can check it out courtesy of CNN [pdf]. The first finding of the report is that Palin abused her power by violating the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The text of mentioned act is available from the great state of Alaska here [pdf].

There are no criminal penalties for violating this particular law, although in the case of the governor, the ethics board is to direct its findings to the legislature so that they may, at their discretion, pursue impeachment. Of course, this strikes me as something they are not likely to do. Another interesting note in the report is the list of people who failed to appear after being served a subpoena. Included in that list is basically everyone who works for or is connected to the governor's staff.

I'm not terribly surprised, of course. The abuse of power in government seems to be the kind of thing we as citizens don't take very seriously, so why shouldn't it happen? I was going to write that we deserve better from our public servants. On second thought, the fact that the news about Palin is about how she winks a lot, and not how her ethical judgement has been found to be wanting by an ethics board, makes me think maybe we get exactly the kinds of public servants we deserve.

The photographer at our wedding has blogged us.

Thanks to Sum-yan for pointing out this artist who does paintings of the kinds of things neuroscientists spend a lot time looking at.

Seriously, though, you probably already knew about:

I guess it's only available for free streaming for the next 30 hours or so. Thereafter you pays your money and you takes your chance.

Yeah, I'm a little surprised myself.

I got a new car. It's the Honda Fit Sport. It's red. I'll take some photos of it later, but for now I want to record the tale of my buying experience.

My credit union has a service where they negotiate prices for all kinds of cars with dealers throughout the country. For some reason, Airport Marina Honda was being coy about offering me the pre-negotiated price. It was weird. So I hemmed and hawed, trying to figure out how they were going to give me the price I wanted. Finally, I figured maybe I missed a step in the process and started over from the beginning. That was on Sunday morning.

Oddly, the process ended with my credit union telling me to go to Honda of Hollywood this time. Within minutes, Honda of Hollywood responded listing the price I wanted. I wrote back asking when I could come in, and they said now!

I cleaned out my old mercury sable (marshmallow car of sex!) of all the accumulated junk and drove over to the dealership. I found the internet sales manager and he asked me to wait. A few minutes later, he came over with another sales guy and said he was too busy right now, but this guy would take care of me. His name was Gary.

So Gary took me up to the roof of the dealership (weird, but that's where they keep most of their cars, I guess). He showed me a pretty light lavender fit sport. I was like, yeah, but what about that rust orange one? He went over to it, and said oh, this is an automatic too. I much preferred the orange to the lavender, so we took it out for a test drive.

The test drive was fun. Gary encouraged me to put the car through its paces. He let me floor it up an empty street, corner hard and test the ABS. Nikki didn't really appreciate that part, but I thought it was fun. I guess you're not really supposed to do these things to a new car during its "breaking in" period, but I didn't know that, and neither did Gary, apparently.

So we went back into the dealership and started the negotiations. Wait a minute, I thought, this is a pre-negotiated price. What's going on here? Of course, the dealership has to make money, and the price I got was invoice + $100. That's not enough of a profit for the sale of an in-demand car, so they had to find other ways to wiggle. They tack on some random fees and other extra crap. I talked them out of charging me for some of the extra crap. Then we talked about my trade-in. This is where my negotiation gets low marks. The trade-in blue book value for my car was about $1,500 if it were in fair condition. I'm no expert, but it seemed like my car was on the border between fair and good, but whatever. The point is, they offered me $500 for it. I thought I would walk out with at least $1,000 for it, but the highest I got them to was $600.

Anyway, the deal was on the table, I was willing to take it and Gary went to have the car washed. I guess they also needed to run a credit check (even though I was paying with a check and wasn't financing the car) so I guess that was happening, too. So Gary goes away and I hang out for maybe 10 minutes. Gary comes back and says, "there's a problem."

I figure the problem is that my identity has been stolen and I'm suddenly on the hook for a credit card loan of 100,000 or something. panic. Gary looks at me and says, "we already sold that car."

"What? Like, just now?"

"No, yesterday. For some reason the buyer didn't take the car, and the salesman didn't put a 'sold' sign on it. So, you want the blue one?"

"Well..."

"Okay, let's see what else we have. Oh, hey, we have a red one. It's just been serviced and we were going to put it out tomorrow. Let me see if I can get it."

I was kind of shocked, but at least the problem wasn't with my credit rating. Gary left to go do whatever, and the internet sales manager came by to see how we were doing. I explained what was going on, he apologized, and I said it was no big deal. I guess that was my opportunity to pitch a fit and maybe get them to do something nice for me, but I passed. Mostly because it seemed like an honest mistake and I'm a forgiving kind of guy, but I wonder what I could have gotten if I had leveraged the situation.

So I test-drove the red one, just to make sure it worked. I wasn't near as thorough at this point, and I probably should have been, but I didn't do any of the stuff the manual says you shouldn't do for the first 200 miles. So that's serendipity, I suppose. I went through the whole deal again and signed about 8 different documents promising I'd get insurance, and that they get my old car, and if my check bounces they get the car back, etc.

I drove my new car off the lot. It's fun. It has a sweet stereo, nice A/C, it corners great and has nice low-end acceleration (compared with what I've owned previously). It revs up all to hell anytime I accelerate, but I guess that's just how Hondas work. I haven't tried the paddle shifters in 'Sport' mode yet. I'll need to find a quiet road with no traffic before I do much with that.

Anyway, that's the story. Check back for pictures later.

Last night I ran into an old acquaintance of mine, the actor formerly known as Elizabeth. She waved me into the restaurant where she was sitting. I popped in to say hello. She introduced me to her dining companion, Yeardley Smith. That's right, I shook hands with the voice of Lisa Simpson.

If IMDB is to be believed, the two are working together on a project, "Waiting for Ophelia".

Okay, we all heard about Hillary's sudden outbreak of emotion in a coffee shop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. What you don't know is that it's also my sister's favorite place to go for breakfast. I guess they have excellent cinnamon buns, although they've never moved my sister to tears. She wasn't present, though, at that fateful moment.

My grandfather, James Taylor, died on December 13th. Here's his obituary. We'll miss you, grandpa.

So I get really upset by unsafe driving, and the inevitable consequence of unsafe driving, traffic accidents. If it were possible for you to drive dangerously but for everyone else to be safe, then that would be a personal choice I'd be willing to let you make. One might claim that good defensive driving will inure someone from the consequences of another driver's unsafe choices. Keep safe following distance, be aware of the traffic around you, and if someone does something dangerous, you have a safe way out. While this may be true (ignoring the truly reckless driver who simply collides with you on purpose), even if you are not involved in an accident, it can have negative effects on you. I have observed many relatively minor accidents causing huge congestion on LA's freeways.

But here's where I start to wonder. How huge is that congestion in real terms? How many person-hours does a fender bender in rush hour traffic actually cost? Would people drive more safely if they knew this?

I also wonder if people realize their driving habits are unsafe. I recently accepted a ride from a friend of mine who I had always considered thoughtful and to have good judgment. She drove like a maniac, leaving no following distance, changing lanes erratically and generally not paying attention to the traffic around her. Of course, nothing bad happened during the ride. We arrived safely and probably got to our destination quite a bit sooner than we would have if I were driving. Because consequences can be so severe for something going wrong on the road (e.g. death), it seems smarter to me to err on the side of caution, but maybe I'm being overcautious.

How severe of a problem is, for example, tailgating? I think it would be neat (and here comes the call for action) to 1) look into the questions about the cost to society of (minor) traffic accidents and 2) develop some kind of simulator for tailgating. The simulator idea could even be kind of fun. Let the user select a speed and following distance. Then display a view out the front of your car of the car in front of you. It could be scaled for distance. After a random, short interval the car in front would suddenly brake. The user would then have to click a button marked "brake." Based on the user's reaction, the simulator would calculate if a collision occurred and then display the personal cost of the accident followed by an estimate of the cost to society of the accident. Of course, if there was no accident the user wins this round and tries again.

A lot of research would need to get done in order to make something like that useful. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to start. Leave a comment if you know the answer to these questions, or if you have a hint where I should look.

Ok, so here are a couple of fun LA moments from my life:

I was going out for breakfast with a couple people on Sunday two weeks ago, but for some reason traffic on Fairfax was moving super slow. It turns out the road was closed and everyone was being diverted. We went up a side-street paralleling Fairfax. As we stopped at a stop sign, I looked over toward Fairfax and saw a giant elephant just kind of walking around in this suburban neighborhood. There was also a film crew.

Also, I just got an email announcing that this Wednesday they are going to be using the building where I work to shoot part of an episode of nip/tuck. Fascinating.

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.