NPCT

I’m listening to Richard Feynman’s lecture on physics and he has a great quote that I want to remember, so I’m putting it here: “If you take an apple and make it the size of the earth, the atoms in the apple will be about the same size as… an apple.”

Dr. Z at CNNSI has his typical insight as he discusses the first week of NFL football. I particularly like is assessment of the Colts-Ravens game:

My favorite game of the weekend was Colts-Ravens. I love a big game that’s low scoring, not through ineptitude, but through great defense. I love it when big plays [...]

Director Kevin Smith (of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Dogma and others) has put up an auction to benefit the Katrina victims. He has very cool things to buy (I wish I could afford to bid):

BBQ and poker at his house
A walk-on part in Clerks 2
Clerks 2 set visit
T-Shirt extravaganza
Personal outgoing voice mail message

Bravo to [...]

I, like many college football fans, am really wound up about this Ohio State-Texas game. It has the potential to be a real classic with hard-hitting defensive style. Even though I’m a Texan I will be rooting for OSU. I’ve been skeptical that Ohio State could beat Texas, but the quotes coming [...]

Slate has a discussion between two thirtysomethings as they take on XBox Live. They pinpoint something that really rings true regarding the transient agegroup for gaming:

I’m right at the fulcrum point of gaming popularity. Almost everyone five years older than me doesn’t really “get” video games and has little interest in playing them. Almost [...]

I’ve been giving some thought to using OpenGL with Lisp. Looking around CLiki, here is what I’ve found, from here and elsewhere:

cl-sdl: Seems to be pretty well-supported on multiple platforms/implementations. Is available as asdf.
opengl-extensions: Extends cl-sdl and is avaliable as an asdf package.
glos: Allegedly works with CMUCL. Was a masters’ thesis, so currently pretty [...]

I am trying to get CMUCL working via Gentoo Portage again. It looks like I can get version 19b with:

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=”~x86″ emerge -va cmucl

I’m not sure if this will resolve the streams issue I had earlier or not.

Here are my week 1 picks and the results:

Favorite
Underdog
Status
Result

(7) OKLAHOMA
TCU
Incorrect
TCU 17, Okla 10

(6) OHIO ST.
Miami (OH)
Correct
OHSt 34, MiaO 14

(11) IOWA
Ball St.
Correct
Iowa 56, BaSt 0

(3) TENNESSEE
UAB
Correct
Tenn 17, UAB 10

(22) Boston Coll.
BYU
Correct
BC 20, BYU 3

(4) MICHIGAN
Northern Illinois
Correct
Mich 33, NIU 17

(19) CALIFORNIA
Sacramento St.
Correct
Cal 41, CSUS 3

(13) GEORGIA
(18) Boise St.
Incorrect
UGa 48, BoSt 13

(25) VIRGINIA
W. Michigan
Correct
UVa 31, WMU 19

(2) TEXAS
LA [...]

Brenda and I were watching the US Open (that would be tennis) last night and the announcer made a reference to “this uniquely American holiday” when talking about Labor Day. *sigh*

This is interesting. CNNSI has projected the entire NFL season. Obviously they just pulled this out of their asses, but whatever. Interesting notes:

Packers go 8-8 and don’t make the playoffs.
Ravens beat the Steelers in the AFC North, but Pittsburgh get in the playoffs as a wildcard.
Titans finish last in the AFC South, [...]

Greg Egan has a cool applet that demonstrates the difference between phase velocity and group velocity.

Here’s the first shots at Heisman rankings. Up front is, not surprisingly, Matt Leinart (USC), Reggie Bush (USC), Vince Young (Texas), Adrian Peterson (Oklahoma) and Chris Leak (Florida). Their dark horses include Ted Ginn Jr. (Ohio State) and Reggie McNeal (Texas A&M). If USC takes any missteps, I would guess it knocks [...]

To round things out here, the Preseason AP Poll is out. The top ten:

USC
Texas
Tennessee
Michigan
LSU
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Virginia Tech
Miami (FL)
Florida

Just for fun, my predictions are… OSU moves up, Oklahoma moves down. Miami moves up, Tennessee moves down. Iowa moves into the top ten and LSU moves out.

CNNSI has put up their NCAA Football Bowl Predictions and it’s an interesting set. I’m a big fan of Ohio State and all, but I’m not sure it’s totally realistic to put them in the national championship game. Anyway - I’ve listed their BCS bowl predictions below.

Rose Bowl - USC (BCS No. 1) [...]

This article discusses how price gouging might actually be beneficial during crises - ensuring that supplies get to those who truly need them. It places a firm belief in the capitalist market ideal, and I’m not sure if I agree with the argument, but it’s an interesting read.

But offering goods for sale is per [...]

Slate has a scathing critique of the Bush administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Bush administration has been staggeringly ineffectual in its response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in New Orleans. Its failures are painful evidence of how far we have to go in developing the capability to respond rapidly to a mass-casualty disaster.

And [...]

Can you tell that I love football? If you came here to read about Lisp, you’re probably a little disappointed these days. ESPN has college football team previews up and here are some notes from teams I tend to keep an eye on.

Ohio State

Returning Offensive Starters: 9
Returning Defensive Starters: 9
Last Season: 8-4 (4-4 [...]

When Congress meddled in the Terry Schiavo case, President Bush rushed back to Washington from his vacation in Crawford. He wanted to sign the bill Congress had just passed as soon as possible.

The president cut short a visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas and returned to the White House for a chance to [...]

Here is an article pointing out that this eventuality was well-known and that the levees had not been repaired because of the Bush Administration’s other priorities: Iraq and tax cuts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working [...]

Just in case anyone else is ever interested… I wanted to be able to have my E17 desktops to switch with the function keys and no modifiers. In other words, I want F1 to go to the first desktop, F2 to the second and so on. The default setting requires pressing the alt [...]