I needed a new vacuum cleaner since my old one (almost 20 years old) made a loud explosion and emitted smoke (which was kind of entertaining, I must admit). I've been doing some web research, and also asked friends for advice. Many people replied. Naturally there was no single clear consensus on The Ultimate Vacuum Cleaner. Thanks (in order of reply) to:
So much conflicting information! It's like the Star Trek where they confused the computer with logical contradictions! What to do? Luckily, Dudley went above and beyond the call of duty and brought his Dyson over to show me how it works - and I must say the Dyson is pretty cool, even though pricier than I was looking for. It has a satisfying "Lego meets Star Trek" geek appeal, bagless HEPA filtering, built-in 17' hose and very long power cord, and a transparent cruft container that you can easily empty when done, getting a visceral thrill at seeing all the cruft you sucked up. Plus, unlike other vacuum designs, its suction doesn't diminish as it fills with dust, thanks to its unorthodox design. And its HEPA filter doesn't need to be replaced; you're just supposed to wash it every 6 months. Dudley hasn't even washed his in a year and it looked pristine due to the Dyson's earlier stages of wacky cyclone filtering before the air even hits the HEPA. Very tempting. I think if Dudley decides to shift careers, he should become a vacuum cleaner salesman. Apparently he's already talked one friend into buying one, and is also working on Allen. Meanwhile, I am sold, so I went and got one at Best Buy and spent an hour vacuuming already. Woohoo! At lunch today a cow-orker talked about how waxing his car was a chore he enjoys and finds satisfying; I think vacuuming fills a similar niche for me.
There was some debate at work and at RussCon whether the Dyson or the Roomba is more of a geek's vacuum cleaner. The Roomba obviously has geek appeal since it's a robot that wanders around your house with AI. But the Dyson also has geek appeal with its nonstandard engineering and wacky manipulability. Depends if you're more of a passive "watch it do cool stuff" geek or a hands-on "make it do cool stuff" geek, I suppose. Ultimately I care more about getting a good cleaning done and I feel pretty confident that the Dyson's actual dust sucking is superior to the Roomba. Plus the Roomba isn't going to handle stairs or vacuuming surfaces other than the floor.
Fina brought along a mysterious envelope she received in the mail (with 12 cents postage due because of its nonstandard size, though the mail deliverer did not charge her the 12 cents). By holding it up to the light it was possible to see (but not photograph very well, alas) that the envelope was empty except for containing a 37 cent Happy Birthday stamp. If you looked carefully, you could see that on the back of the Happy Birthday stamp is written "Fina maybe late but Judy'd like it anyway Love Dad". It seems her stepdad mailed her a 37 cent Happy Birthday stamp for her to mail to her mom Judy whose birthday was in fact August 20 (the very night of RussCon).
Anyway, Fina donated the enigmatic artifact to the RussCon Museum of Curiosities.
Heads up that the Willow Band (the new project of Clandestine bagpiper EJ) will be at the Cactus 8:30 on Tuesday September 2.
I recently joined friendster.com, an interesting and potentially useful looking social networking site that seems to be becoming popular; if anyone else has an account there, let's add each other as friends. You can find me as Russ Williams (duh!) At this point it's not clear how useful friendster is, but it's an interesting idea and kind of fun to poke around and play with for a bit.
| CarcassonneHunters | 3 | Fina 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2 |
| ZirkusFlohcati | 4 | William 3 Marty 1 Fred -1 Whendy -3 |
| Mu | 4 | Ben 3 JP 1 MarkH -1 MarkG -3 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Whendy Marty ) 1 ( William Fred ) -1 |
| Exxtra | 4 | MarkH 3 MarkG 1 JP -1 Ben -3 |
| UnionPacific | 5 | Matt 4 Clayton 2 RussW 0 MarkY -2 Fina -4 |
| Zero | 4 | Ben 3 MarkG 1 JP -1 RussD -3 |
| Bluff | 5 | Whendy 4 RussW 2 William 0 Fina -2 MarkY -4 |
| Euphrates | 3 | MarkG 2 JP 0 Matt -2 |
More Union Pacific action this week! We played with the option of letting you burn a share of Unpac for a share of Unpac, which seems silly and we decided we wished we hadn't.
JeffF emailed me (in response to last week's Carcassonne edge-of-the-table discussion) that "One of the Lord of the Rings card games that's been played at RussCon has the stay on the table rule. It also suggests a minimum table size." I'm sure there are other such games as well.
Ratings
Ben is the Devil! Marty, MarkH and Whendy are Co-Vice-Devils. Matt and William are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils. An unusually short and wide partial order tree this week. If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ. |
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Whendy was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game she mailed out:
Whendy also created the Marty masks seen in the photo (each one a unique work of art with lovingly hand-drawn eyebrows and eyelashes). (There was also some green discoloration that gave a good rotting flesh effect, which I appreciated since I recently enjoyed seeing the cool film 28 Days Later for the second time.)
Here are the hot picks of the Marty Googlisms as selected by Marty himself:
Marty is half-naked with his ukulele.
Marty is a smarty, arty, and likes to party.
Marty is drinking from the fount of wisdom but will he choke?
Marty is straying from the one true path of Knizia obsession.
Marty isn't handsome and successful with a huge megaphone.
Marty kissed Brad again.
Let's hope Marty isn't contagious.
Marty pretends to be Darth Vader.
Marty isn't exactly your stereotypical Hollywood hero.
Marty isn't impressed by an amp that goes to 11.
Marty wishes for the Leprechaun's pot of gold, and he gets it... but of course there is a catch.
Marty is looking forward to returning 'home,'
Marty must confront vicious pimps, suspicious cops, Hollywood mega-moguls
and all-powerful demons from the pages of myth as his life is turned
inside-out.
(Our Most Assiduous Reader may desire to see all of the submitted Marty Googlisms.)
Of Marty's favorites, 13 came from DaveB, and 1 apiece from Whendy, RussW, and William. A lottery was then done (with Dave getting 13 tickets and the other 3 finalists getting 1 ticket) and DaveB was unsurprisingly the winner! So Dave is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!
Jean Michel Jarre, Oxygene
Jean Michel Jarre, Equinoxe
Jean Michel Jarre, Les Chants Magnetiques
Jean Michel Jarre, Zoolook
Jean Michel Jarre, Rendez-vous
malevole.com has a Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer Quiz, and I'm amused that the very first face displayed is quite familiar to me.
spellingmistakescostlives.com has a variety of stuff including a satirical September 11TM site includes surreally funny footage of street interviews in Glasgow
gwbush04.com has further satire
Gallery Jiyuseki has photos of some very cool stone sculptures.
Zombie Infection Simulator is a fun Java demo, especially if you recently saw 28 Days Later (a good movie I recommend, and I've since learned that the cool music from the deserted London sequence is by Godspeed You Black Emperor (about whom I read fairly recently), it doesn't appear on the soundtrack, and it's a part of a longer track called East Hastings from an album called f# a# ∞. Whendy and I ran into Whindy and Rob when we saw the film again, and Rob and I both remarked upon the music in that scene. I also found an interesting interview with Danny Boyle about the music and the movie. But I digress. Go zombies! Yay! Of course they're not actually zombies anyway, but that's another tangent.)
The Gender Genie attempts to deduce an author's sex given a sample of the text. I don't know how well it works, though. I gave it some of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, and it thought Hesse was female. I gave it my 2 paragaphs of vacuum cleaner discussion earlier, and it thought I was female.
20Q.net is a learning AI website that plays 20 Questions
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