Cry Havoc, and unleash the nematodes of WAR!

I spent my Samhain doing something frightening, but not at all pagan...

I spent my day trying to convince the Stanislaus County Fire Marshall not to shut down ERPS's operations out at the Rocket Ranch. We succeeded, I think. The new Fire Marshall has a science background, a laid back attitude, and a strong, personal relationship with reality.

We also showed him the things he most wanted to see -- willingness, even eagerness to cooperate; a sober, serious approach to safety; and respect for his position and knowledge. I like firefighters, and have utmost respect for the work they do. People who go into harm's way to save the lives of complete strangers are very cool .

Well, the boat delivery turned into a shakedown cruise. Rough stuff -- we returned to Honolulu midday Friday and I am only now, on Sunday, getting back to human. Will post more details later, but I am eternally glad that the captain and owner is a man of such great experience and judgement.

Well, all packed to scoot my butt east for Starwood. One huge duffle, one medium gigantic duffle, and my shoulder bag. Clothes, bedding, and sundries for a week and a half in the woods.

I am going to spend August helping an old friend deliver a boat he just bought from Hawaii to San Francisco. This is going to rock. I haven't run up any sea time in more than a decade.

As of Thursday, I am completely moved into my new place in SF... that is to say, the internet service got turned on .

But the really important thing is that I'm now in SF... and really should get around to meeting some of the SFSG crowd... this will require actually finding a photo that I do not find embarrassing to post here and getting around to it... and hoping I haven't managed to piss Lil Tuffy off too terribly much.

In other news, within days of ceasing to live with my ex, I fell in with a new girl. She's a buxom redhead and reasonably interested in me... and has similar enough interests to keep the conversation going. That's about all I want right now, so it's a good thing.

Today I finally got a chance to try my hand at welding with an oxyacetylene torch. It was kind of fun. My welds by and large sucked -- ugly as hell, but my penetration was right more often than it was either over or under penetrated. The acetylene bottle was almost empty, so my acetylene pressure was too low and I set my oxygen pressure too high. I also screwed up my technique in a couple of ways I only realized in retrospect. Next time....

I'm bored and at loose ends tonight... any suggestions?

Well, it looks like I am moving in to San Francisco proper. My new place is near Mission and Geneva. Little tiny in-law unit. I consider it temporary, until I can get better quarters. Along those lines, I am looking for a housemate to share an under $2k/month house somewhere in SF or environs. Enquire within, and know that I am much less of an ogre in person.

In other news, I just got my copy of Edward Tufte's new essay, 'The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint'. This 23-page screed lays out in excruciating detail just what makes PowerPoint presentations so uniformly awful.

It's a complex and nuanced argument, but it boils down to a few key points. First, PowerPoint emphasizes style over content. Tufte dubs the resulting tendency to plaster every slide with cute clip art and meaningless typographical flourishes 'PowerPoint Phluff', and adorns the margin with a drawing of a jar of Marshmallow Fluff with an appropriately doctored label.

Second, PP breaks all information into hierachical, disjointed bullet lists. This breaks up the flow of narrative and obscures even the simplest of non-hierachical relations. Tufte makes an apt comparison between the cognitive style of PP and the structure of totalitarian propoganda. Tufte, in typical fashion, drives the point home with a clever graphical flourish (on the front cover, natch).

This corruption of thought is the most serious problem that PowerPoint presents. Tufte reprints a brilliant parody of the Gettysburg Address ala Powerpoint (from Peter Norvig) as a prime example of the way in which PP is capable of corrupting even the best laid thoughts. It is not that the people who use PP are necessarily sloppy thinkers; often they are not. However, PP makes it very easy to do the wrong thing and very hard to do the right thing.

If you are interested, I suggest you spring for the $7 the essay costs and order it from Tufte's site.

This is depressing. My book collection doesn't even fill half of a 5x8 U-Haul trailer. Clearly, it's way too small.

I got an offer on my house today.

Today, I actually got something done. I finally finished the peroxide sparger I've been working on for about nine months. I'm such a slacker, but tomorrow I will be making peroxide. Life is good.