señor taco’s travels

Tonight at work they screened 30 Days of Night. While watching the movie There came a point where it didn’t seem like there should be all that much bass, but it felt like it. Then a second or two later you realize that it’s not bass, but it’s a 5.6 magnitude earthquake. ¹ It went on for about 20 seconds I’d say. Thankfully I was in the main building so it was really dampened.

This was the largest magnitude quake I’ve ever been in, but the one that probably felt like more to me was the 4.2 in July.

1. Centered in the South Bay, near San Jose.↩

Mike Lee: The Power of Charity:

So we just give it to charity—every penny of it. No matter how convinced you are that we have black hearts fueled by consuming the flesh of kittens and puppies, it’s nigh impossible to come up with a good conspiracy theory that involves us compromising our user experience to earn money for charity.

This is very minor in the grand scheme of the universe, but today is a day when I loath computers.

I played Bioshock up until the last level. At that point the Xbox 360 had to be sent back for repairs. After over a month of not playing it I decided I’d try to finish it up this afternoon since I got very close to finishing last night. When I started the game I was informed there was an update, that’s not unusual so I let it go through.¹

The update loaded and the game restarted. As it got to the opening screen where it normally says ‘continue’, ‘new game’, etc. the Xbox rebooted completely. I thought that was strange but I just went back into the game. Oh if only it were that simple. There was no ‘continue’ option this time. When I went to ‘load game’ I had no saved games. Well, that certainly blows.

I then went to check and see if it was just me, but whatever happened wiped out all Bioshock game saves on the console. Mine, my house mate’s and the guest account. I won’t be trying the game again, I’ll just go find the ending on YouTube.

Damn computers, maybe I should go back to forestry.

1. Technically I had to otherwise the game wouldn’t play.↩

My friend Rob¹ has written a nice article on Evolution and Wisdom of Crowds.

1. BTW, Rob is an insanely smart fellow. I’m glad I got to work with him if only for a little while.↩

This idea of cheap wind generators is pretty damn cool. I love the simplicity of the device and it’s relatively cheap components.

This movie is definitely not the 1990 rubber suit version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I really enjoyed TMNT (2007) and I think it went a long way towards capturing the feel of the comic series.

In watching it the city of New York just didn’t feel right. Over at Ironic Sans They addressed this very same issue. It was good, but not in a “hey lookit, I know that location or skyline” way.

On the animation side the animation was well done with the exception of the lip sync just not meshing up well, but that could have been done with an eye towards dubbing the movie in to multiple languages and wasn’t distracting once I stopped paying attention to it. The lighting was solid if a bit bright for my tastes.

Overall I enjoyed it and I hope that more movies get made. It makes me hopeful for the Astro Boy film that Imagi is working on now.

Rating: 3.5/5

“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game.” — Grantland Rice

This morning I got up early for the first time in a while and rode my now rebuilt bike up the hill with Keeth. I had to adjust the seat hight a little and this evening I’ll adjust the seat tilt.¹

Other than that the ride was smooth and without issue. The back wheel was making a bit of noise again. I had it serviced but it seems like I might need to get the hub bearings replaced.

1. I have a great seatpost, but adjusting on the road can be difficult↩

I just finished putting Darkside, my carbon bike, back together. I took my time and made sure I did everything correctly. The only parts that didn’t get taken off were the shift handles and the cassette. Other than that, every part had been removed and a few replaced (cable housings and the front derailleur being the big items).

Now I will ride it every day this week and do all the fine tuning it needs. It feels a little weird since it’s a smaller frame than what I was riding, but once I have it all back in tune and ride it I know it will feel just fine.

The War of the Worlds Book Cover Collection:

(Via Neatorama.)