Dangling Conversations

Colour commentary on the world we live in

Updated Xmas Stories

Posted 25 Dec, 2006 at 19:27 by kael in /Words | Permanent link

Updated Xmas stories.

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4 Things

Posted 04 Oct, 2006 at 10:15 by brent in /Chatter | Permanent link

Four Jobs

Four Movies

Four Places

Four TV Shows

Four Vacations

Four Websites

Four foods

Four Places

Four bloggers (might be a stretch...)

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4 Things

Posted 30 Sep, 2006 at 08:49 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link

A little something...

Four jobs I’ve had in my life
youth counsellor
farm hand
business process re-engineer
product manager

Four movies I can watch over and over
White Christmas
Shrek
Sound Of Music
The Fifth Element

Four places I have lived
Orangeville, Ontario, Canada
New York, New York, USA
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Waterloo, Ontaio, Canada

Four TV shows I love to watch
(this is very hard for someone without a TV)
CSI
Firefly/Babylon 5/ST:TNG (and various other extinct sci-fi shows)
Discovery Channel
Music Videos (MTV, MuchMusic, VH1)

Four places I have been on vacation
Mardi Gras, New Orleans
Signal Hill, Newfoundland
Highlands Backpacking Trail, Algonquin
Cat's Pyjama's B&B, Lion's Head

Four websites I visit daily
Questionable Content
Jay Is Games
CNN
Travian

Four of my favorite foods
Pad Thai
BBQ T-bone steak and a baked potato with butter and sour cream
Pie (and other pastries)
Fruit (almost any kind)

Four places I would rather be right now
camping
someplace new/on an adventure
playing ultimate
anyplace with friends

Four bloggers I am tagging
Matt
Kael
Brent
Wendy

If you've been tagged, the only rules are you must answer the same questions, and you must tag 4 new bloggers.

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Windows Vista: The Burning Questions

Posted 28 Sep, 2006 at 08:37 by brent in /Technical | Permanent link

I've been having a hell of a time finding a good utility that was:

I already had Nero, but it doesn't work yet on a clean install of Windows Vista. (I'm running RC1 build 5728).

So I wrote my own utility. You can download it or get more information at : ISOBurn

Source is there as well if you want to play with it.

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What I'm grooving on, 09/2006 edition

Posted 27 Sep, 2006 at 23:26 by matt in /Music | Permanent link

So consider this a resolution to put up at least one post a month in this space. Here's some stuff I've been listening to a lot recently.

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Oh yeah

Posted 06 Sep, 2006 at 20:40 by matt in /System | Permanent link

Today, in addition to being the birthday of one of the authors (hi Brent!), is the second bloggiversary of Dangling Conversations. Given that the front page still has posts from freakin' April on it, it's fair to say that the initial excitement has died down substantially.

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Memory: still like a whatchamacallit.

Posted 06 Sep, 2006 at 20:24 by matt in /Books | Permanent link

Had it not been for a stray comment in Neil Gaiman's blog, I might never have realised that Susanna Clark, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, also wrote one of my favourite stories in the Sandman: Book of Dreams anthology. I haven't picked up the volume since shortly after the Great Flood in my apartment over six years ago, and while I remember the story (Stopp't-Clock Yard) vividly, I had nothing to hang the author's name on in my mind at the time.

(Looking in the book now, it turns out that I still sort of follow the authors of my other two favourite stories; I've been reading Steven Brust for quite some time, and John M. Ford is one of the posters on Making Light.)

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Calgary

Posted 27 Aug, 2006 at 10:37 by brent in /FoodDrink | Permanent link

Lisa & I are in Banff for our 5th Anniversary. It is incredibly beautiful. We enjoyed the hot springs last night and wandered around town.

The real reason I'm posting however is on our way to Banff we went through Calgary and had lunch at James Joyce's Irish Pub downtown. The food we had there was amazing. Lisa had strawberries and brie on small pieces of toast (mmm mmm good). I had a lamb burger with pistachio nuts, bacon, blue cheese, and really good home cut fries. It was fantastic. Service was really good and the ambience was phenomenal. It's in a historic building and there was even a tour outside talking about the origins of the building. Anyway, could write more, but it is our anniversary :)

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Math + A Capella

Posted 02 Aug, 2006 at 22:20 by kael in /Music | Permanent link

If you're a mathie, you'll like this.

If you're a music lover, you might like this.

If you belong to the intersection of those two sets, you'll likely howl at this.

[P.S. this is one of those cases where I wish I could double categorize a post.]

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Block thing walking

Posted 24 Jul, 2006 at 18:14 by matt in /Science | Permanent link

Via Good Math, Bad Math: want a screen-saver that leans how to walk? My fellow OS X users should check out breveCreatures, developed in an A-Life simulation package called breve.

It's an evolutionary simulation: twenty-five critters made out of between two and many blocks (I've never seen one with more than eleven parts) are dropped onto a featureless plane, and each one in turn tries to walk (or, well, perambulate). Success is defined as maximum distance from the starting point; the more successful critters breed to populate the next generation, the less succcessful die out. Pretty standard genetic-algorithms type stuff.

The soon-to-be-released game Spore that Blue wrote about a while ago plays around with evolutionary ideas, but (from what I've read) does so in a particularly unscientific way. It's got player-designed organisms and a "march of progress" from simple aquatic creatures to planetary civilizations; those are great for a strategy game, but pretty much entirely against the spirit of the modern understanding of evolution. breveCreatures functions nicely as a demonstration of those same principles.

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Is your home wired enough?

Posted 22 Jul, 2006 at 17:40 by kael in /Technical | Permanent link

Your laundry machines beg to differ.

(From wired.com)

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Airplane Boarding Algorithms

Posted 10 Jul, 2006 at 00:30 by kael in /Math | Permanent link

Ever wonder what the most efficient algorithm is for arranging passengers boarding an airplane? You're not alone! This paper is a mathematical analysis of the topic of airplane boarding algorithms. Well, two of them.

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Nice Bed

Posted 03 Jul, 2006 at 22:48 by kael in /Science | Permanent link

I try not to talk about $WORK[0] on here anymore, and this sort of qualifies, but in an interesting way.

And I love the 2001 reference.

[x-posted to my LJ.]

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The final frontier

Posted 30 Jun, 2006 at 17:47 by matt in /Home | Permanent link

It's been a day of picking up keys: I'm moving offices (this weekend) and moving house (over the next few weeks), and I've been given access to both of my new spaces today.

I've therefore spent an inordinate portion of my waking hours today wandering around in empty rooms, sometimes clutching a tape-measure, and envisioning things. The actual process of moving will be kind of arduous, but right now the sense of possibility is making me happy.

Let there be no more doubt about where I stand on the Judging/Perceiving axis: P all the way, baby.

(I'll post a link to photos once I've uploaded them. I'm using the cheapest damn digital camera money can buy --- it's like the Polaroid 600 of digital cameras --- so don't expect much.)

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My Day Isn't Over Yet

Posted 23 Jun, 2006 at 20:53 by brent in /System | Permanent link

Well, the server is back up. It appears the primary machine has suffered either a motherboard or power supply failure. Thankfully I do have backup hardware, just took a bit to copy stuff over and reconfigure it for the other machine.

I'm still tweaking some config stuff, but everything ought to be a go at this point.

This has been a culmination of a day where a vast amount of unlikely events have occurred in the span of just 12 hours.

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Can't Stop The Serenity

Posted 21 Jun, 2006 at 08:52 by blue in /MovingPictures | Permanent link

So, Serenity is making another big screen appearance, this time for charity. Toronto is one of 47 screens around the world that will be re-showing the movie on the big screen thanks to its loyal following of fans, known as Browncoats.

Saturday June 24th in Toronto for those who are interested.

Read the article here Or the website here
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Leaving on a jet plane

Posted 09 Jun, 2006 at 11:01 by wendy in /World | Permanent link

Strangely this will be the first time I've been on a trans-atlantic flight all by myself. There's something about the fact that I'm going to spend all night travelling and arrive tomorrow morning at what feels like 4AM and need to negotiate customs all by myself, and then figure out how to get to my hotel, and probably discover that they won't let me check in until after lunch (which is going to feel like breakfast), and then I'm going to have to find something to do for several hours while massively sleep deprived, that kinda freaks me out. Hopefully the hotel lobby will have big comfy chairs and not mind me passing out in one of them...

I guess I'm better off than my roommate. She won't be arriving until 3am. It will be interesting to see whether or not I actually get my room because it's her name on the reservation (they've assured us repeated that this will not be a problem...but then these are the same people who told her to "Call back tomorrow mornign at 9am, so&so will be here for sure then" only to discover that 'tomorrow' was a national holiday...so we'll see). Worst case I've got the address of a hostel around the corner.

I'm probably worrying about this way too much. Time to go get on the plane, once I'm in the air and can no longer actually do anything about the situation I'll stop worrying :)

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Life for sale

Posted 07 Jun, 2006 at 12:10 by blue in /Social | Permanent link

Ever heard of Gen-Pets?

Neither had I until I found a link to their site.

A little disturbing at first and I kept following links on the site looking for the page that would say "ha ha... this is all a joke".

I couldn't find it. If you can, let me know.

See more ...

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Ventrilo is set up

Posted 30 May, 2006 at 00:10 by brent in /Social | Permanent link

I've set up a server. You can connect through either of www.oneoddsock.com or www.goldenempires.com. Ping me if you are interested in the password. It is the public version.

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A Real Moving Still Picture

Posted 29 May, 2006 at 12:35 by brent in /MovingPictures | Permanent link

This is wicked!

Wavey
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Hows & Whys
Who we are

Blue has been known to toss a disc around a field from time to time, and thinks that you should as well. He lives either on the Internet or in Toronto, depending on your perspective. Ask him no questions and there's a good chance he'll tell you no lies. [Site]

Brent hosts the box from which we dangle our conversations, for which we are all eternally grateful. Gratitude is most easily expressed in small bills. Formerly a pawn of the Evil Empire (or maybe a Knight), he has gone over the wall and now toils at a small computer game company in Alberta that no one except for ten million gamers has ever heard of. [Site]

Kael occasionally gets called "Mike"; mostly by people who don't know him. He cooks, he cleans, he maintains Unix servers... what else could you ask for? Currently a slave to the Man, by which we mean retail sales. He has secret plans, but we can't tell you about them. In fact, we've already said too much. [Site]

Lisa is a recreational therapist without a cause. She entertains dreams of ruling over an empire of scrapbooking. Has a well-deserved reputation for enthusiasm, common sense, and tiredness. Ask her about her teapots, but don't touch them.

Matt is just this guy, you know? A mathematician by training and a layabout by inclination; he currently has an Urban Commuter Campus in the American Midwest convinced that they should pay him for plying these trades. The designer and administrator of this site, which means in a sense this is all his fault. [Site | E-mail]

Sky is a salesman during the day. At night he doesn't bother: his words are like unto those of a god, and you can agree or you can be wrong. Lives in the World of Warcraft, with a sattelite office in Toronto. Known to play games on occasion.

Wendy has never run away to join the circus, but pursuing graduate work in medical imaging is perhaps just as good. She didn't choose her current abode on the basis of proximity to a Toronto Public Library branch, but we wouldn't put it past her. Married to one of the other authors here, but you'll have to read the archives to find out which one. [Site]

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