How do you earn your living?

This topic has come up a lot in the past 6 months. I enjoyed this article, and plan to buy the book when it comes out.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

There is always a risk of introducing new complications when working on old motorcycles, and this enters the diagnostic logic. Measured in likelihood of screw-ups, the cost is not identical for all avenues of inquiry when deciding which hypothesis to pursue. Imagine you’re trying to figure out why a bike won’t start. The fasteners holding the engine covers on 1970s-era Hondas are Phillips head, and they are almost always rounded out and corroded. Do you really want to check the condition of the starter clutch if each of eight screws will need to be drilled out and extracted, risking damage to the engine case? Such impediments have to be taken into account. The attractiveness of any hypothesis is determined in part by physical circumstances that have no logical connection to the diagnostic problem at hand. The mechanic’s proper response to the situation cannot be anticipated by a set of rules or algorithms.

That's a complicated way of saying that sometimes you have to solve hard problems, and those hard problems involve both working with your head as well as your hands.

I laughed - caucasian

I esp. liked the picture of the crackers.

Video courtesy withleather.com. And wherever he (they) got it from.

Backlog

Not much to write about so far this week. Been busy. Doing stuff.

This photo illustration is left over from a post I did a couple months ago on Tebe Interesno (tebe_interesno? no idea). I can't read the Cyrillic alphabet but I suggest you get to his website every couple weeks for something fresh and good.

I particularly liked these.

And this.

All images copyright their respective owners (as in, not me).

Crazy busy week - Superbowl is on today

Spent the weekend at the pool either prepping for getting a hangover or recovering from same. The superbowl of soccer is on today - Champions League final between Barcelona and Man United. ManU can suck it so we are rooting for Barcelona. The only person I know that likes ManU is my friend Sonia. Shame on her.

Too tired for long explanations about much of anything. Watch the game if you can get to a TV. It should be compelling entertainment.
More later.

I heart maths

Not sure they covered this in math class when I was in school. If they had, it wouldn't have mattered since I probably wasn't paying attention anyway.

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/math-and-the-city/?em

Brief quote:

The same pattern holds for other measures of infrastructure. Whether you measure miles of roadway or length of electrical cables, you find that all of these also decrease, per person, as city size increases. And all show an exponent between 0.7 and 0.9.

Now comes the spooky part. The same law is true for living things. That is, if you mentally replace cities by organisms and city size by body weight, the mathematical pattern remains the same.

Delusions of grandeur

Ever since God of War came out and was awesome people have been working to copy it. Most of the copies are garbage but this looks entertaining. I get to be War? As in, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse? And I get to put the beatdown supreme on the angels of heaven AND hell? Sweet.

Just don't make me ride with Pestilence. He smells.

I need one of these - if I can afford it

I've been wanting a bike like this since the GSX-R1100 brought superbikes to the street in the mid-80's. Not much has changed: I still have a silly haircut and a soft spot in my heart for Suzuki.

This is the GSX-R750 - a bit big for an entry-level bike but an easier bike to ride on the street than the 600. And since I don't plan on doing any track riding, a better option for me.

But I haven't decided yet.

Yet.

Ask me in a 2 weeks, after I've had a chance to talk to my insurance guy and worked out the costs.

Ferguson does it again (see what I did there?)

Late Show w/ Craig Ferguson opening, this time with Britney Spears. And puppets. And a guy in some really cute shorts. Many thanks to warmingglow for the video. You should get over there for more goodness. I'd post more vids cribed from warmingglow but it would feel like plagiarism. And I'm lazy.

Mid-life crises arriving early this year

I think I'm having a mid-life crisis.

I've heard these things tend to happen after you've had kids and are in your 40's or even as late as your 50's, but mathematically I'd suggest that's a bit of a reach for 'mid-life'. People don't usually live to be 80 or 90. In fact, the data I checked suggests that men live to around 75, which is almost exactly half as old as I am now. Moreover, I think if you're going to have this kind of 'crisis' you should do it as young as possible. Time's a wasting, so I'm getting a head start on mine. I'm proactive like that.

Photo is the crack swine-flu outbreak team. They've got scooters. And masks. I used it b/c while the swine flu paranoia has finally abated (after infecting ~0.00002% of the world's population - I barely missed it) I've got some kind of awesome cold/fever/congestion. Fun!

In other news, this is cool.

The vote are in: cutest baby contest winner

My friend Jean had a baby. I don't usually do baby pictures on GJAW because I don't have any, but I thought these were cute. It's a boy, and his name is Alexis.

I thought Alexis was a girl's name (and believe me, I know about girls names because I have one - thanks you, idiot parents) but he's From France and I guess it's a boy's name over there. Or something.

The internet delivers

Got a gift from my friend's wife last night in the form of http://www.sorryimissedyourparty.com/. It's pictures of other people's parties on flickr, and I'm kind of bummed I didn't think of it first. Enjoy that for a few minutes today.

Also funny was the photo cliche blog. You know how people take the same picture over and over again? Why do they do that? I don't know. But you can see lots of examples here. And for words instead of pictures, try that was epic, a website of decontextualized video comments. It's like Mad Libs for the soul.

What do you look for in a date?

Got a funny email from my friend today. She asked me if I would be interested in meeting her pilates instructor. (The automatic answer to this kind of question is always 'yes' - but that's not the point here.)

She also said:
"She’s super athletic (ding!), goes to church (which you USED to do regularly) and she’s not from here (bonus!) ... She’s in your age range, college educated and is looking to settle down (ding, ding, ding…)"

The best part about this is that this list doesn't include any of the stuff I look at when I meet a girl. Went to college? pffffft. My 'age range'? If she's 25 or older then that's my age range. Church? pfffffft again. None of this is relevant.

Here's the complete list of things I look for when I first meet a girl, in it's entirety:

1. Is she fit?
2. Does she want to know me?

If you answered yes to both of those questions then let's get together. Until then I'll be standing around drinking Bud Light with Lime in facebook pictures. I do kinda like my shirt though.

Three minutes and nine seconds of goodness

Yeah I love cats. I love cats and dogs both but what I love about cats is they don't care about your needs (they're like people that way). You belong to them, and if you don't like it, get a dog. These cats have special needs, but they look like they've found a loving home.

Michael Jackson has been eating way too much crazy

I'm not sure why people are still obsessed with Michael Jackson after all these years. I am sure that he is crazy. If you're not sure, review this flickr set. There have got to be more photos kicking around the internets but these are a highlight.

In the painting at left, we've got all the essential elements for a classic oil-on-canvas:
Michael in a suit of armor w/ red robe/cape
Parrot
Sword
Holy grail (?)
Jesus figure (?)
Angels (one large, attending to Michael, one smaller, attending to Jesus (?))
Bubbles the Chimp
Space shuttle

You can bid on this item, and quite a lot else, when it goes to auction.

Clearing up the backlog, part n+1

I've had this on my desktop for a couple weeks but haven't had a chance to post it. It's a picture I took in Rio a couple years ago. It's not noteworthy in any way except that I like it and it reminds me of being there. And it's not a bad photo of Copacabana beach / Sugarloaf mountain, although you can find better if you spend 0.5 seconds searching on the internet.

It's a lot easier when the other guy doesn't try

Here's some pics of me doing some partner work at a recent self-defense seminar that was led by my jiu-jitsu instructor. I posted these photos on facebook but not all of my people out there in cyberspace are my fbook friends - some of you don't have accounts, and some of you aren't my friends (figuratively speaking).

In any case, it's just a demo, which is why I'm not wearing a full gi and also, coincidentally, not getting my ass kicked. Full credit to Matt for being a good sport. We have just as many photos of him doing the exact same things to me, but you're not interested in those, are you?

I-banking isn't what it used to be

This is my friend Zach. He worked at citigroup for several years in equity derivatives. He's in between jobs right now and is spending his free time traveling the world (seriously). I'm not sure if he's in any way responsible for the financial crisis but I'm sure he's responsible for more than one good time. I'm planning on meeting him South America later this summer, probably in Argentina. I hope he brings the hat with him.

I love that you can do this kind of stuff in Mexico and it's more or less acceptable, even encouraged. As far as I know there isn't really any other reason to go to Mexico, besides putting on the shot-glass bandolier and making magic happen.

Note how he is definitely blowing the whistle as he pours the cuervo into the girls mouth. Nice touch, that.