Chuqui 3.0

I Dare You to Give Hockey a Try!

Silicon Valley Moms Blog: I Dare You to Give Hockey a Try!:
the sport is alive and well here in the Silicon Valley through the Northern California Womens’ Hockey League (NCWHL!)

Every year the NCWHL sponsors “Give Hockey a Try Day.”This year’s event is coming up fast on August 18th at the Belmont Iceland. This is an opportunity for women aged 13+ to experience hockey. No equipment is necessary; it will be provided.

If you're in the bay area, curious about hockey, and female -- I've heard nothing but great things about this event, and it's coming up soon. And while it may be very un-hockey-like here right now, it's NOT too early to get going about getting into a league for teh fall once the rains start again...

(hat tip: eric)

Anil Dash: Bottled Water Is Still A Scam

Anil Dash: Bottled Water Is Still A Scam:

It’s worth reiterating that Aquafina and Dasani are just tap water. There’s nothing wrong with that, since tap water is very good water — it’s just not worth paying 500 times as much for. I don’t have any argument against the convenience factor, either, since it makes perfect sense to take water with you when you’re on the go. You’ll just get something that’s got less bacteria and generally better quality if you fill your bottle from your tap.

Here at home, we've long used this PUR water filter to clean up the tap water; Tatiana's vet encouraged it long ago as a way to make sure what the birds drink doesn't have surprises that might impact them. The only trick is to make sure you remember to change the filters when you should -- if you don't, they can turn into bacteria factories when they sludge out.

The cost per gallon is trivially small, and you control your own quality. The activated carbon microfilter reduces benzene, chlorine (taste and odor only), MTBE, TTHMs and sediment. The ion exchange resin reduces lead and copper from your water. The pleated microfilter removes 99.99% of microbial cysts. Automatic Safety Monitor Gauge provides continuous indication of filter life. Filters approximately 40 gallons and lasts approximately one to two months.

We still use bottled water when we're out of the house -- it's convenient, and a hell of a lot healthier for you and with fewer calories than most of the alternatives -- but the really serious types could use this to refill their own flasks before leaving.

To me, it's hard to see any reason NOT to do this...

(hat tip: jeremy)

Odd or Even... or Both? - Worse Than Failure

Odd or Even... or Both? - Worse Than Failure:

The address data provided by the vendor is partitioned into Odd and Even ranges for a given street. Sometimes -- usually when there are not a whole lot of addresses on a street -- the vendor puts them in the Both range. And this resulted in the following code being written to determine the evenness, oddness or bothness of the address entered...

If IsNumeric(StreetNumberValue) Then
If 2 Mod CType(StreetNumberValue, Integer) = 0 Then
OddEven = "E" 'Even
Else
OddEven = "O" 'Odd
End If
Else
OddEven = "B" 'Both
End If

This may seem weird, but it has practical uses. If you're setting up a delivery route of some sort (post office mail), or needing to sort addresses into delivery order, you need to be able to segregrate one side of the street from the other, because that's how it's delivered. Up one side (odd), back the other (even).

But -- both?

Well, yes. Think about "special" addresses, such as, say, 101 California street. In that situation, both are delivered together, they aren't segregated, because it is, after all, one building with a lot of addresses inside it.

Depending on how the data is set up, you might also see both for things like rural routes and small culdesacs.

It is, ultimately, a custom sorting option for translating addresses into a sequence of deliveries. Sometimes odd and even matter, sometimes not; and "both" is the way they tell the system to sort the two sets together instead of separately.

Drobo Review: Frickin’ Awesome

Drobo Review: Frickin’ Awesome:

Drobo is being marketed as the world’s first “storage robot”. Call it a buzzword, but it does act like a robot. It’ll keep your data in tact, it detects read and write errors before they become critical issues, and it has four hard drive bays. Drobo itself is just merely a long, black square with LED indicator lights, hard drive bays, and USB cable. Add your drives, plug it in, connect it and you’re done. Drobo relies on no software, making it an excellent choice for both Mac and PC users.

This is a technology I plan on keeping an eye on; the only reason I'm not drooling over it now is I want to see how Leopard's backup solutions work in reality and what kind of storage back ends I'm oging to want for them. Once I know that, I'll bet something like this is involved somewhere.

San Jose Mercury News - Puddles, the hippo, euthanized at SF zoo

San Jose Mercury News - Puddles, the hippo, euthanized at SF zoo:

Puddles was born at the Kansas City Zoo in May 1963, before coming to the San Francisco Zoo a year later. Puddles and the 44-year-old Cuddles produced 16 hippos, including eight male and eight female calves.

"He lived quite a life there," said zoo spokesman Paul Garcia. As for Cuddles, she appears to be doing fine. "She's not showing any signs of distress."

Damn. Sad to hear...

Here's a shot of Puddles from my collection:

and another:

and Cuddles with one of their sixteen offspring (what the story doesn't note is that the zoo spent significant time and energy trying to keep these two on birth control, only to find out that the hippos had other ideas...)

This one, by the way, goes back to my film days (later scanned onto photo-CD); late 80's, early 90's, somewhere around there. And it's one of my absolute favorites from my film days. that was shot on a Minolta 7xi and Velvia, FWIW.

Rest in peace, puddles.

National Parks Traveler: The Essential Yellowstone

National Parks Traveler: The Essential Yellowstone:

Perhaps the world's most iconic national park thanks to its parks-movement history, incredible geology, and rich fount of wildlife, Yellowstone is both the standard-bearer and lightning rod for the national park system.

Very nice piece on what to do at the park (which laurie and I are hoping to hit in the fall...)

Tim Oren's Due Diligence: Bomb(er)s over Silicon Valley

Tim Oren's Due Diligence: Bomb(er)s over Silicon Valley:

Locals in the Valley and along the San Francisco Peninsula having been hearing the unfamiliar sounds of heavy, multi-engine piston engines from the skies the last few days. A traveling exhibit of WWII American warbirds has been visiting Moffett Field, including a B-25J Mitchell, a B-17 Flying Fortress, and the world's last operational B-24 Liberator.

and here are a few shots of the B-17 flying around from their trip last year...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/sets/72057594119826863/

evhead: Staples Will Recycle Anything (for $10)

evhead: Staples Will Recycle Anything (for $10):

Staples Will Recycle Anything (for $10) (TreeHugger): "Today Staples launched its national 'Computer and Office Technology Recycling Program.' Thus becoming the first national store to offer everyday, in-store recycling of pretty much any sort of electronic equipment. Just bring in your computer, monitor, printer, fax machine, scanner, etc. and they'll recycle it 'in accordance with environmental laws.'"

Nice work by Staples. I'll head down there this week and buy some stuff to thank them. (I need some photo mailing tubes, anyway)

Where does one take old paint?

Quick answer: check with your city. Almost every city has a toxic/hazardous waste program that will take stuff like this, sometimes free, sometimes almost free. Definitely to keep it out of the landfills.

Not quite so long answer: if it's a latex or water based paint, you can likely put it in the normal trash, IF it's been given time to dry out. If you aren't sure if it's water or latex based, open the can and stick it somewhere safe, give it some time to evaporate. If it dries out, it's safe to landfill. If there's an oily scum left, it's oil-based, and then see the quick answer above.

The toxic program is also useful for old herbicides and insecticides, and all that other stuff you really, really don't want to stuff down the drain. And used engine oil can be recycled at any oil-change facility like Jiffy Lube.

Umm, Steve Got Lost - Worse Than Failure

Umm, Steve Got Lost - Worse Than Failure:

When asked the question, "If you finished your part of a project early while others around you were still struggling to finish their parts, what would you do?"

Now I know what you are thinking a good answer would be, "I'd see if I could help them in some way" or "I'd check with the project manager to see where I could be of use."

This particular interviewee had a more honest answer though. "Well, I really like watching TV. I'd probably go home early and watch some."

(oops)

Sometimes a story catches your eye, and sticks with you. Coast Guard mission over, cut short by deaths

I've been following this story for a while, because the circumstances just seemed bizarre. The final report on the death of the two Coast Guard divers has been released, and it's sad reading.

Sometimes a story catches your eye, and sticks with you. Coast Guard mission over, cut short by deaths

[....]

Okay, so it looks like we have two problems. One likely equipment, one procedural.

The first diver seems to have suffered some kind of gear failure. My first thought is that a valve failed and spilled the air out of their tank in a short period of time. That would create a lot of chaos, and they'd lose the buoancy of the tank. That would cause them to crash dive into the depths. Their buddy did what buddies do, and went after them. Unfortunately, 189 feet is way too deep on a number of levels, especially under those conditions. You eat up your air rapidly, and then if you don't come up under controlled circumstances, you get the bends.

But to me -- WHERE THE HELL WAS THE SHORE CREW? both divers were supposed to be on ropes to prevent getting lost under the ice, and they weren't supposed to go past 20 feet. So how did they get 200 feet down before someone decided something might be wrong?

Scathing report on fatal dive:

On a day when everything seemed so right, everything went so wrong.

Aug. 17 was a sunny polar day when shortly after 6 p.m., Coast Guard Lt. Jessica Hill and Boatswain's Mate Steven Duque descended into the 29-degree Arctic Ocean. It was to be a familiarization scuba dive in cold water during a festive "ice liberty" granted the crew and scientists by the skipper of the Seattle-based icebreaker Healy.

Around the diving site were frivolity and relaxation as the crew of 84 and 35 scientists celebrated mission's end with football, strolls, photographs and approved cans of beer. Some even violated the executive officer's direct order against polar bear plunges, jumping into the chill water within 30 feet of the divers -- the skipper nonplused watching nearby.

To help with the diver's lifelines, Hill recruited a few crew members partying nearby as "dive tenders." They had no training or experience in the work, so she gave them an informal briefing. Two of the tenders had been drinking.

She and Duque entered the water at 6:10 p.m. for what was to be a 20-minute, 20-foot-deep dive.

This isn't a case of "everything that could go wrong, did". This is a case of "everything someone could screw up, screwed it up". When the council that wrote the report finally laid blame, it did so -- on everyone. It starts with the divers botching their buoyancy weight and installing their safety gear incorrectly; the "safety team" on the ice was untrained, and not properly briefed, so they didn't know what was and what wasn't a problem. It took them 200' of rope to figure out that the divers weren't swimming under the ice but going down. After that, they needed help from the nearby party to actually pull the pair back up (meaning the safety party was too small).

Scuba is a risky sport at the best of times; what this situation brings forward is a soup-to-notes failure of all parties involved to follow procedure and to take seriously what is a difficult and dangerous profession.

The thing that really caught my eye here was what seemed to be a (for lack of any other way to describe it) sloppy attitude towards the buoyancy gear. They wore way too much weight, didn't test their buoyancy at the start, and the weights that should have been easily removable weren't. Right there, I had to wonder what the divers (and especially the senior, experienced one) was thinking. Or not.

As my friends who scuba like to point out, simple mistakes are deadly at 50 feet down. Because of that, scuba people tend to be as anal and process driven as airplane pilots, carefully practicing and following processes and checklists. And yet in this case, trivial mistakes were made.

Is this simply a case of someone who'd done scuba long enough to lose the fear that drives scuba divers to be very careful? And who paid for it with her life?

The lack of clear process and oversight by the ship leadership is worrisome; this was very much a preventable accident in any number of ways, but ultimately, no scuba diver should go into the water until they're sure things are ready, and these two did.

Whatever the root cause, it's just sad.