I finally went ahead and completely disabled anonymous comments on my LJ.

For a while I had set them to screened by default, but really the only anon comments I get anymore are spam.

The only reason I had them enabled in the first place is that there was a time when some family members actually read my LJ and wanted to comment on it without making an account. But I don't think any of them ever really follow it anymore. Most of my posts are friends-only by default anyways. So I don't know why I left anon comments enabled for old public posts. Seems absurd now that I think of it...

Just completed my biggest ever plumbing project, in that it's the first time I ever had to cut into the main water supply, which was a little nerve-wracking.

The goal was to add an outdoor faucet for the back yard. I've been complaining since we first moved into this has that while it for some reason has a faucet in the front of the house, it didn't have one in the back where it would be more useful. I guess the front faucet is somewhat useful for car washing. In fact, the only person who ever uses it is the old toothless guy with the horrible stutter who washes everyone's car on the street.

For the most part it was a pretty simple task. I found some old copper pipes that were sticking out the back of the house but wasn't connected to anything. They looked like they might have been for an old AC unit. So I was able to just pull them out and was left with a perfectly good hole to work with not too far from the main supply.

One small added complication was that the hole came out under the deck, which is rather inconvenient. So I also had to add some pipes from the faucet to the end of the deck, and cap it off with a secondary faucet.

Everything pretty much worked out except for three big mistakes, which were at least learning experiences. The first one was that I didn't realize all the pipes in the house were CPVC. CPVC is a special kind of PVC that's insulated for carrying hot water. Its diameter is just slightly smaller than normal PVC of the same inner diameter. This prevents you from accidentally mismatching them, which makes sense.

It turns out my house uses CPVC for cold water as well. But I didn't notice this until I had already shut off the main supply and cut out a section of the pipe. The only way to easily tell the difference between CPVC and normal PVC is that it has a light beige color. But in the dimness of my basement it was almost impossible to tell that the pipe was actually beige, and not just a bit dusty. So with the water still shut off I had to run back to home despot to get a CPVC to PVC adapter.

The second mistake was that even though I had shut off the main supply and let the excess drain from the kitchen sink, I still got a good spray in the face when I first cut into the pipe. Maybe this would be obvious to anyone else, but it wasn't to me: I also had to shut off the supply to the hot water heater--its reservoir was supplying a small but not inconsequential amount of pressure to the system.

Third: I just plain forgot to cement one of the joints before I turned the water back on. I had put it on for a test fitting and somehow just never remembered to do that one properly. Amazingly, it still held for a few minutes. But eventually there was a violent pop and water spraying everywhere. The best thing about that was that the cat was right under it when it happened =D Hopefully it scared him enough to go anywhere near the basement again. Fortunately this happened right near the sump pit, so I was able to mop all the spilled water into it. It didn't cause any damage. I was quickly able to get the water shut off again, get everything dried off, and redo the joint properly.

The only problem I have so far is a slight dripping leak between the outside faucet and the secondary faucet. I have the supply to the faucet shut off for now, so I can fix it later. Other than that, I'll just be living with a slight paranoia that one of the joints will burst again at any moment. They do seem pretty solid though, and I did everything by the book. So it should be OK. Now I will be able to water my garden without having to run in to fill my watering can several times.

Given the opportunity it will try to kill you. And I don't mean slowly, by clogging your arteries either.

At dinner tonight it tried to kill me. It was so fantastically delicious I practically inhaled it. But I did not sufficiently break up the layer of caramelized suger--which was like a sheet of glass--before swallowing. Within seconds, a sizable chunk of glass, er, sugar, lodged itself in my throat.

I tried clenching my throat a few times, figuring it wouldn't be too hard to break up. But that just made it worse--it was so painful I almost cried. I quickly got up and made my way to the kitchen, where Céline's dad was fixing coffee. I whispered to him that there was sugar lodged in my throat and that I immediately required hot water to try to dissolve it. Despite the absurdity of the situation he understood and poured me some hot water. I drank about six glasses, which eventually did the trick.

It still hurts a bit, but I'm sure it's fine. Apparently I was very discreet about the whole incident, as Céline did even know this happened until I told her just now, even though it happened right in front of her. So I guess that's just how awesome and stoic I am. Though I think if it had hurt me any worse I should be a Darwin Award nominee at least.

From today's hatemailapalooza on Daily Kos:

( LJ cut for your brain's safety )

In most cases I'd just ignore this kind of stupidity. After all a shocking number of Americans reject the fact of evolution (I have lots of issues with the "believe" wording in that poll, but that doesn't detract from the overall point). But this guy is just hilarious for all his posturing about how much he's studied BIOLOFGY and his grade school understanding of combinatorics and statistics. Ugh...if there's an all loving deity in this universe, this guy is a poe.

P.S. GUESS WHO PROVOKES MEN TO ORGASM? Liberal gays.

I read a number of months ago about the upcoming final mission for Discovery. It was always my favorite shuttle for some mostly arbitrary reason. It has flown more missions than any other shuttle, it delivered Hubble into orbit, and performed at least one of the Hubble servicing missions, maybe more. That launch was scheduled for back in November, but there was just no way I could get away then; things were too crazy. I think this mission was even postponed one other time before then.

So when I learned a little more than a month ago that the new launch date was February 24, I got to thinking maybe it would be fun to drive down to Florida to watch it. I've wanted to see a shuttle launch my entire life, and this was one of my last chances. I filed the idea away in the back of my mind, and kind of forgot about it for a few weeks.

Then I remembered again just about two weeks before the launch. xevv was gung-ho about going with me, which was great! The only problem was figuring out how I'd get the time off, as the launch was inconveniently scheduled for a Thursday. Since I only just started my job I haven't accumulated too much vacation time--most certainly not 3 days' worth. I did fortunately still have two "discretionary" holidays left (we get 3, but I had to use one when I was sick on my third day at work). I didn't want to use both of them, so I just worked 64 hours the week before so that I could take Wednesday through Friday off.

It was far too late for me to obtain tickets to watch from Kennedy Space Center, so after doing some research it seemed the best place to view from was a place called Space View Park, about 11 or 12 miles away from the actual launch pad. I found a crummy little motel just a couple blocks away, which was convenient. Fortunately, turns out the motel was under new management, and has been fixed up a fair bit. The room had a microwave and a fridge, was clean, and cozy. Definitely not a regretful choice, and it was helpful to be so close to the park.

I left late Tuesday night and drove straight through to the motel, at which I arrived at around 10:30 AM. The drive there was exhausting, but not as bad as the drive home. I had napped for a few hours before leaving, so I was relatively spry and rested. Didn't have any problems getting there. Before going to the motel we checked out the scene at the park. There weren't many people there yet, but there were a few other tourists checking the scene out. There were some port-o-potties being set up, and a region of the parking lot was being coned off for the media. With the use of Google Maps on my phone I was able to find the Vehicle Assembly Building. It should have been easy to pick out with the naked eye, but at the time it was shrouded in mist and was barely visible even with my binoculars (the next day it was very plainly visible most of the day--it looms over the horizon). Unless you've been up close to it, it's a little hard to appreciate how large the thing is. To give some idea, each of the stars on the American flag painted on the side of it are 6 ft. wide.

Just a little to the left of the VAB I could make out a tall structure that I at first mistook for the launch pad. There was nothing else like it on the map, so I wasn't sure what else it could be. It surprised me how large it looked though--it was almost as tall as the VAB itself, despite the fact that it should have been further away. Turns out it was actually an under-construction launch tower for the scrapped Ares V rocket (which I hope will return some day).

Got to the motel room and crashed for another several hours. Around 1 AM I went back to the park to check things out again--figured I'd have a better view of the launch pad with it lit up. There were already a number of people there at that point. A bunch of asshats with RVs filled up the parking lot, set their chairs out along the edge of the water, and chained them together so no one could move them easily. There were a few photographers out getting shots and finding their spots for the next day. This time the actual launch pad was plainly visible, and further away like I'd imagined. Still, with my binoculars I could make out a fair bit of detail. Unfortunately, when the shuttle is on the pad it's facing toward the east, so you can't see it from there. I thought maybe I could see a tiny bit of a wing sticking out.

I returned for good around 5:30 AM, which was a pretty good time to show up. There were no more than 50 people milling about the park, including a number who actually camped out all night. Had I been by myself I might not have minded doing the same, but I'm still glad I had my motel room. It really wasn't necessary. Getting there when I did, I still got myself a great spot immediately behind the RV asshats. And so there I sat for 11 hours--I've been through worse waiting ordeals for really less important things. The only thing that sucked about this was the sun, but even it could have been worse--at least it's only February. xevv got pissed at me when I called her at 6:30 asking her to get out of bed and come watch the sunrise with me. She was pretty unrelenting, so I let her go back to bed, and actually felt kind of bad about it. I was just bored I guess. She didn't show up until around 11:00.

Coincidentally, a former coworker of mine showed up. He just came out of nowhere and recognized me. So we sat together most of the day. I've never been close to him, and we didn't talk much. But it was still pretty cool, and he called up the guys at my old work place and we said hi to them. I passed most of the time reading God's Middle Finger, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

As the day progressed, the activity heated up quite a bit. The park filled to capacity, and there were all kinds of people there (still mostly white people though, with the exception of a handful of Asian tourists--kind of odd). There were a few NASA officials there, including one who set up an audio feed from NASA TV--very useful. There was one portly guy with a Lego Store employee t-shirt who brought a Lego space shuttle set that he and some other people built while waiting. I wish I had thought of that--maybe next time. A few food trucks arrived too, though I brought a cooler with my own snacks and some beers and water. Got a mild sunburn on my neck, but I was thoroughly covered otherwise.

When the countdown clock was at only a few minutes away there was a moment of tension when the Range Safety Officer (RSO) was not "go". Everything else up that point had been pretty smooth--some minor tile damage around the shuttle crew door had been either repaired, or assessed to be not a problem (I wasn't sure). There was bated breath while we waited what was wrong with RSO. Apparently it was just a problem with their display--not sure exactly what it entailed, but it almost sounded just like a couple monitors needed to be replaced or something. The launch director decided to go ahead with the countdown while that problem was worked out, and by just about 30 seconds from the end of the last hold it was fixed.

It's hard to write much about the launch itself--from so far away it was hard to get the full feel of it. And yet, it was still utterly spectacular. It happened so much faster than I could have expected too. I thought there would at least be several seconds of massive steam clouds before the rockets actually fired. But once the clouds appeared it was no more than a second before the thing was in the air. The acceleration was amazing. I had of course seen lots of footage of these launches before, but a lot of it was actually in slow-motion. I thought there would be several seconds of slow acceleration before it actually cleared the launch pad, but it in reality it was nearly instantaneous. There was a flash of light, and then it was in the air.

I actually had a kind of hard time seeing it. Not because of the distance--with my binoculars there was a very clear view, and once it rotated I could see the shuttle itself clearly. Rather, I was shaking so much just from excitement and from holding back tears that it was hard to keep the binoculars still. I had to put them down for a few seconds and watch with my bare eyes. A few seconds later the sound came, and it was booming from even 12 miles away.

With my binoculars once again pressed into my face, I was able to follow the shuttle through the air a good distance, and the image stayed sharp and clear for a long time. I got a perfect view of the booster rockets separating and falling. The shuttle's trajectory was such that I could easily look back and forth between it and the boosters, so that I could follow their fall. They remained plainly visible until they disappeared into some distant clouds. The shuttle itself eventually became nothing more than a light, like a star, which grew dimmer and dimmer until it disappeared completely from view. I'm not sure exactly how high it was at that point, but I don't think it was more than a minute before the announcement came that it was officially "in space".

Afterwards it was hard to even say much. My coworker and I said short, almost curt goodbyes, and Céline and I walked back to the motel in near silence. But we all agreed that it was Awesome. I'm thinking of going back for the final launch, which should be sometime in late June. Will have to make plans soon though, as I'm sure it will have even more enormous interest.

Dear Bank of America,

I find it ironic that, in the process of calling me (unsolicited) to sell me your identity security services, you would ask me various personal questions, despite the fact that I did not call you and I have no way of confirming your identity. Way to go.

Nevermind the fact that I've already blocked more than one of your numbers from calling me, and you keep trying anyway.

No love,
Me

...I think people should lay off Sarah Palin a bit. That's not to say that she doesn't have responsibility for promoting eliminationist rhetoric to a large audience. And there is of course the now infamous crosshairs map, which I was angry about when it first came out. It's just that while this was a right wing politically motivated killing, there's no evidence (yet) that the shooter(s) took any cues from Palin. And while Palin has used eliminationist rhetoric, she is far from the first or the most egregious offender.

Take, for example, her own challenger for her congressional seat: He posted frequently holding M16s and other automatic rifles. Granted, he was a combat veteran, but most of these photos were not in that context. He was still a gun nut and a violence lover, no doubt. He held campaign events at shooting ranges--target practice. I can't recall if this was one of his events in particular, but I do remember reports of a political rally where attendees were shooting targets of their opponent's face.

And then there's Sharron Angle of Arizona's neighbor Nevada who coined the famous phrase "Second Amendment remedies" to our political problems. And there are many far worse examples, predating even the election of Barack Obama (though they've increased since then).

My point is not that Sarah Palin doesn't have some culpability here. Just that I see no reason to single her out, other than her being a high-profile "target" herself. And I have to disagree with those calling for her "career" to be over. First of all, what "career"? Second of all, I still want her to run for President and win the Republican nomination. I don't think that's likely to happen either way, but god wouldn't it be hilarious?

Does anyone know of any good open source games that need or want some help?

I'm increasingly interested in getting into game programming. Since I'm in Maryland there are several good game studios around, and I want to be able to take advantage of that--especially now that I know a couple people who work at them (though they're artists, not coders).

I do have some graphics programming experience, but not particularly for games. Rather, back in high school I worked my way through the Graphics Programming Black Book. It's a great book and very educational, but pretty outdated now. And I haven't touched game dev since then.

I do realize that many studios need programmers for other stuff too such as backend server programming and writing tools. And I can certainly do that. But I still suspect I'd have a much better chance of getting hired if I had some game experience to show off too.

So I'm trying to think of a project I can get involved in. The only thing I have in mind at the moment is Stepmania, since it's the only open source game I actually play myself. But I'd be interested in other suggestions too. They don't even necessarily have to be open source--if anyone knows of any independent game projects that need help I'm interested.

I'm going to headdesk forever next time I hear someone whining about "militant secularism" or "militant atheism". I understand what they mean by it, and I understand that they only mean the "militant" part as "confrontational" or "outspoken". But I don't think it's a very fair characterization, considering the nature of militant religionists. Militant religionists bomb innocent members of different sects of their own religion (not to mention members of other religions). What do "militant secularists" do besides write books, post rants on YouTube, and curse the Pope on Twitter?

And yet people on the religious right complain far more about "militant secularism" than they do about fanaticism in their own religion. But I'd be willing to make a bet as to which militants they feel more threatened by...

So there's this wingnutty church in Southern Florida (need I say more, really) that's promoting this mass burning of the Quran that they want to stage. Clearly they must have some clever media people, because the whole thing hardly sounds worth national news, let alone international news. I don't know how big this church is, but I'm sure this whole thing will just be an insignificant handful lunatic assholes throwing some books into a bonfire. I don't think I need to tell you why they're stupid. I'm no fan of the Quran either (but probably for very different reasons from these troglodytes) but I'd think that reading it and talking about it might be more constructive than burning some paper with ink on it (a waste of resources if nothing else).

But somehow news of this "event" found its way into international channels, and now Muslim extremists around the globe are in an uproar over it, as they are wont to do. They have every right to take offense, I suppose. I may disagree with their presuppositions, but in the world view they've grown up with, defaming this particular collection of printed words is serious blasphemy. Where it gets especially stupid is that there are reports, in light of this, of mass protests against America and even someone burning President Obama in effigy. Now that's just stupid--as if the actions of one podunk megaevangelical church in Florida in any way represents the entire United States, let alone Obama, the SEKRET MOOSLIM himself -_- Then again, given the utter insanity in this country in recent weeks over the Cordoba House, I'm more inclined to actually sympathize with Muslims who think that Americans are out to destroy their religion and culture. I'm not even certain of the accuracy these reports of protests and effigies specifically over the Quran burning. I'm just going by what's being reported in the mainstream media, which we all know likes to make shit up. So I'm giving them a lot of slack here--but they're still a bunch of whiny-ass titty babies who need to grow up and get over themselves.

And finally, we have reports to today that General Petraeus and others are warning that this book burning could enrage extremists in Afghanistan and put US troops in danger. Maybe there's some truth to that. But this smells just like another Cordoba House: Gen. Petraeus is suggesting that a particular group give up their first amendment rights because what they want to do might not be "prudent" or something. I think it is a tasteless, ugly, and maybe even dangerous thing to do, but they still have every damn right to do it, and not Gen. Petraeus or anyone else has the right to stop them. And honestly, it would probably be difficult to draw a direct line from "book burning" to troop deaths. Even if a violent Taliban extremist explicitly cited the book burning as a reason for attacking Americans over the next week, it's hard to say he wouldn't have anyways. The kind of person who would react violently to this already believes himself to be in a holy war with the Western world and Christianity, and would probably have at some point acted the same way anyways.

Of course, this warning from Gen. Petraeus makes the book burners look even stupider, with a healthy dose of hypocrisy. These are exactly the same kinds of people who slap "Support the Troops" stickers to their SUVs and whine about how we can never, ever second guess our military commanders. Of course, I'm constructing a straw man here. Maybe they're actually smart enough to realize what I just wrote--that their actions aren't likely to cause any more violence than there might have been anyways. But...I doubt that.

Edit: And speaking of Cordoba House, I just read Ed Brayton linking to this awesome New Republic article that states exactly my thoughts on the topic, but better written. Part of the article is behind a pay wall, but Ed quotes the best parts. "Why doesn't Rauf just move the mosque? That would bring the ugliness to an end. But why don't Palin and Gingrich just shut up? That, too, would bring the ugliness to an end."