jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2011-11-24-2238Z

This morning around 7:45 or so, while drifting in and out of sleep, a decidedly female but somewhat electronic voice said "Hi". That was all; it woke me up, but I went back into semisleep and attempted to communicate; no reply. I imagine that was just an introduction, and I might hear more from this entity as time goes on.

I'm in "the city", San Francisco, having Thanksgiving with my lady's family in a house on Parnassus Heights overlooking Cole Valley and indeed, a goodly part of the city proper. Downtown was, about an hour ago, illuminated by Sol to the "alabaster city" of the song, but now the clouds have asserted their temporary dominion, and all is gray and gloomy on this side of the bay. [comment]

2011-11-22-2307Z

Finally found a walnut tree in town, on Bassett Street about half a block from the Catholic church. There were a few drops underneath it, and I ate a half of one that was cracked open. A bit bitter, it has probably been absorbing all kinds of toxic chemicals after the rains wash everybody's lawns into the street. [comment]

2011-11-21-2045Z

Last night I threw my 3 layers of wool shirts into a drybag with 3 activated drops of MMS at the bottom of it, sealed the bag, and left overnight. It did a good job of deodorizing. Maybe I can wear them another week! [comment]

2011-11-21-0748Z

Finished the CHS calculations for clusterFix, and after finding more space optimizations to fit a real-mode data section into the GDT, realized I'd already fit one in some time ago. Hmm. Anyway, now I have not much left to code to jump back into real mode, make BIOS calls to read and write the boot disk, and I can have a working, bootable colorForth on a USB stick. [comment]

2011-11-19-1947Z

Last night I tried the diluted activated MMS as a body wash; it helped but didn't completely eliminate odor. So I took some hot soapy water outside in a pan; took off shirts; covered with poncho; took off remaining clothes, and washed. Might be workable if camping or #Occupying. [comment]

2011-11-19-0140Z

First day trying protocol 1000. After the 3rd hourly dose I haven't felt like taking any more; the very idea makes me want to gag. It's not the taste; it doesn't taste bad at all. It's the way it makes my body feel. I'd probably lose a lot of weight if I did this for any length of time, it really kills my appetite. If I had a choice between doing this for a month and dying, I'd really have to think it over. Luckily, it supposedly kills most diseases in 4 days. [comment]

2011-11-18-0647Z

I started plucking out my whiskers, Ishi-style, a day or so ago. If I do it for 10 minutes every morning, maybe I won't have to shave at all in 10 more years. [comment]

2011-11-18-0333Z

I only meant to use one drop of MMS for my first test, but without a dropper about 3 small drops fell into the glass, so I used about 15 drops of vinegar according to instructions. First I sniffed it so it could attack my postnasal drip problem, then added water and drank. My burp tasted like clorox smells. Let's see what happens. [comment]

2011-11-18-0130Z

Mixed my first batch of MMS today using 80% tech grade anhydrous Sodium Chlorite from Keavy's corner, and distilled water. One tsp powder added to a 12g tare plastic cup brought it to 15g; a tsp water brought it to 21g. Heating about 20s in the microwave was sufficient to dissolve it. Will try it out later.

[comment]

2011-11-17-0620Z

Driving home from Ignite Sebastopol, being blinded much of the time by oncoming traffic, I keep coming back to the idea that there has to be a better way to illuminate the road without shining light into the eyes of oncoming drivers. When I did my long-distance bike trips I had it even worse because my puny light would not compensate at all. This should be a research project in all government-funded schools.

Another "best practices" engineering concept would be to eliminate "hooks" in wearable items, such as the small gap in zipper handles that catch the fibers in my smartwool and capilene shirts, ripping them to shreds eventually. I have all these pouches and camera bags with various items I carry around with me, and most of them have zippers with this problem. [comment]

2011-11-15-0409Z

Damn, it's hard to find examples of how to use pocketsphinx on Debian. Here's what finally works for me:

pocketsphinx_continuous \
	 -adcdev plughw:0,0 \
	 -hmm /usr/share/pocketsphinx/model/hmm/wsj1/ \
	 -lm /usr/share/pocketsphinx/model/lm/wsj/wlist5o.3e-7.vp.tg.lm.DMP \
	 -dict /usr/share/pocketsphinx/model/lm/wsj/wlist5o.dic

Now to figure out how to make a general-purpose voice transcriber using it, for #OccupyPetaluma meetings. [comment]

2011-11-14-2150Z

A black walnut just fell near me, no walnut tree in sight but a crow was passing overhead. Could crows be dropping them to open them for eating? Or just to see if they can hit somebody?

Saw fresh deer tracks and scat on the hillside today. Got to practice with my throwknives for a silent kill.

Launched the larger rocket today. It didn't go very high but it flew straight, and the parachute deployed perfectly. [comment]

2011-11-12-2138Z

What I was told is Passion Fruit is being sold at Andy's as Pineapple Guava, $1.69/lb. [comment]

2011-11-11-0157Z

Passion fruit is dropping off the bushes outside the tennis court at Petaluma High School, south of the police station on Petaluma Blvd. North, and probably other locations around town. I just found out today what is is, from friend Kris. Might make a decent fermentable, will have to wait till it ripens more.

I found a pear tree along Old Redwood Highway in Penngrove the other day, too, but it's too close to the road and probably has diesel goop on the outside of the fruit. Same goes for the passion fruit, but in the latter case the inside is what is used. I could peel the pears as well, but then I'd miss out on the natural yeasts. Guess I'll have to use packaged yeast in either case. Better go to Beverage People in SR and get some champagne yeast if I want a decent result. [comment]

2011-11-06-0344Z

I told someone who requested it months ago that I would post a reasonably complete inventory of all the stuff I usually carry on me. I'd better start doing it piecemeal or I'll never do it. Here goes the first part:

Neck wallets, that I almost always wear, even sleeping: (wallet 1) passport book, some silver ("Mercury") dimes. (wallet 2) Starbucks card, debit card, two credit cards, occasionally cash and/or change.

Smallest shoulder pouch: safety razor, Dr. Bronner's soap in small bottle, sawed-off toothbrush (is this illegal in California?!). [comment]

2011-11-06-0251Z

Finally figured out this line in the disassembled arrayforth binary:

xor dword [dword 0x202770],0xe1

where the dword at 0x202770 is the address of a subroutine. What it's doing is toggling between two different subroutines:

xor dword [dword ptr0x202770], ((subr0x201175 - $$) ^ (subr0x201194 - $$))

Yes, I still consider Chuck a brilliant programmer, but some of his assembly language tricks make me gag, regardless. [comment]

2011-11-02-1457Z

Sun rises on day 5 of #OccupyPetaluma. I've been thinking: why don't cops use nonviolent weapons against nonviolent protesters? Laughing gas, not tear gas; nets, not billy clubs and handcuffs.

Bay laurels are fruiting, like tiny avocados. I wonder if the fruits or seeds are edible. Tasted the fruit yesterday, it wasn't overly bitter. [comment]

2011-11-02-1247Z

I know I'm not doing enough for #OccupyPetaluma, but I'm just not ready to sleep in the park yet. Hope to be prepared by Thursday, when it's supposed to rain. [comment]

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