I would like to come to the meetup, but I won't be in the Bay Area until the end of the month.
Not Fresh Salt. But I see that LB is still in the loop.
I haven't been in the Loop since 1992.
I'll miss the festivities in San Francisco, but if I may be indulged in a limited threadjack, I'll be in Portland shortly for a short while, and am in want of recommendations. I will definitely go to the Perfume House, by hook or by crook, though it is out of my way, and probably Popina. What are the other places I need to see while I am there? I think I'm staying near downtown. Near Voodoo Doughnut, should I go there? There's also some sort of bookstore thereabouts, or so they say.
I understand there's good pie at the Bipartisan Cafe.
The Perfume House is one of the greatest places in Portland. Voodoo Doughnut is overrated as an experience; they're good doughnuts, but they're, you know, doughnuts. There is indeed good pie at Bipartisan Cafe. Email me if you want recommendations.
Don't Emerson's relatives have a place that sells pie in Portland? What's that called?
Has a time for the SF meetup been proposed?
16: I sort of guessed that when I reread it.
My regrets; I'd like to come but probably can't make it.
||?
Radioactive I-131 In Rainwater Sample Near San Francisco ...Mar 31
Iodine-131 level in rainwater sample taken on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on UC Berkeley campus, March 23, 2011 from 9:06-18:00 PDT20.1 Becquerel per liter (Bq/L) = 543 Picocuries per liter (pCi/L) -- Conversion calculator here.
The federal drinking water standard for Iodine-131 is 3 pCi/L. (Press Release)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry for Iodine, CDC, April 2004:
EPA has set an average annual drinking water limit of 3 pCi/L for Iodine-131 so the public radiation dose will not exceed 4 millirem
"Schools around here collect the rainwater for their gardens, which produce some veggies. Experts...how dangerous are these levels?" ...FDL comment
Answer:"no safe level for children"
|>
20: Hmm, hard to square with the widely reported safe drinking water limits of 100 Bq/L for children and 300 Bq/L from when the Tokyo water supply got to ~200. Also with the description at the UC Berkeley site where they report the results (samples taken on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on UC Berkeley campus). The number in parentheses is the number of liters of water that one would need to consume to equal the radiation exposure of a single round trip flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C. . Which for the sample in question (more than double any other sample) is 134 liters.
The 3 pCi/L standard for I-131 is back-calculated from the yearly 4 millirems/yr standard (which is an order of magnitude less than the transcontinental flight exposure).
Conclusion: If you fly cross-country with your infant you're a monster Calamity pron at FDL. Quelle surprise!
Masturbating to an Earthquake would be a good name for a speed-metal band.
Well, if no-one else has any suggestions, I'll stick a flag in the map and say six o'clock at Buck's. (I think Yelp says they close at 8 on Sundays).
Brave the fallout and join me!
That leaves plenty of time to head over, afterwards, to the Totally Intense Fractal Mind Gaze Hut!
Sun 4/3 9:00 PM $10 Totally Intense Fractal Mind Gaze Hut [671 b 24th street oakland]
Lisa Mezzacappa's nightshade: John Finkbeiner - guitar; Lisa Mezzacappa - bass; Kjell Nordeson - vibraphone, percussion; Tim Perkis - live electronics; cory wright - bass clarinet
shudder: Kyle Bruckmann - oboe, english horn; Lance Grabmiller - laptop, audiomulch; Phillip Greenlief - tenor saxophone, Bb clarinet; special guest from berlin - prepared turntables
I managed to successfully guess—on the first try!—the identity of the special guest from Berlin; go me.
23: Masturbating to an Earthquake would be a good name for a speed-metal band.
You should hear their cover of "Turning Japanese".
Actually it looks like if I go I'll need to leave around 6:30. Maybe I'll come at 5:30 to make my time there more substantial and allow for early-arriving people (Alex, does your comment imply some flexibility?) or lurkers.
There's flexibility, but there *is* a time factor.
I'll be there around 5:30. See you guys in a bit.
Liveblogging: I'm here, sitting at the end of the bar by the TV with the baseball game on.
I can endorse the new mouseover.
(Oddly, the alt tag is not blank.)
This must be some party going on, I tell you what.
We decided ToS is just misunderstood. And SPARQL is hell and a packet of crisps.
34.2: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to overly-ambitious protocols with recursive acronyms the semantic web the singularity.
And speaking of the singularity, those who tend to be overly judgmental about such things should probably skip the part of this Janelle Monáe interview in Mother Jones where she talks about nanotechnology, Ray Kurzweil and the singularity.
Maybe when recursive acronyms become self-aware we can pit them against the derivatives trading programs and the semantic web in a battle royale.
Maybe when recursive acronyms become self-aware we can pit them against the derivatives trading programs and the semantic web in a battle royale.
Hasn't Charlie Stross actually explored this?
37: Sure*.
SELECT ?weapons broadswords
CONSTRUCT pit
*Details of syntax left to the reader.
||
No more masturbating to the Daily Sport. This will probably reduce the amount of actual masturbation in Britain by a measurable amount.
|>
41: We were actually discussing that last night; in the course of the conversation I got to introduce Alex to the concept of dot races.
What's the legal position in California with regard to vigilante killings of Swedish musicians? I ask only because the ones staying in my hotel woke the whole place yelling and arguing at 2am last night.
Relatively good news from Fukushima! The mutants have developed awe-inspiring powers...no. IAEA update - at least one of the reactors is now getting down under 100 degrees, and the three contaminated guys are OK and out of hospital.
43: Vigilante killings by Swedish musicians are frowned upon, though I can't speak about vice versa.
44: This is a very interesting article: "Nearly half a century ago, as a young naval officer, [Jimmy Carter] led a 23-man team to dismantle a reactor that, like Fukushima, had partially melted down."
Jimmy Carter. Is there nothing the man can't do?
History's greatest radioactive monster.
The health physicist at our reactor had worked with Carter briefly, and extensively with people who had worked with Carter. They thought well of him, despite a joke about his having once fallen into the pool.
Distant weak rumour, getchers now.
46: What that article fails to mention is that Carter's original plan was to use the radioactive environment to develop and house giant mutant sea mammals. He called the project Habitat for Huge Manatees.
I hope that's a Simpsons reference.
50: The pun is a groaner, but I do like the idea of mutant giant manatees.
Clew, I'd really like to hear your story about being in charge of a reactor during an emergency (cf nuke threads passim).
54: Oh. Well, great minds mumble mumble...
Palo Alto trip liveblogging: wow, this is the first hotel I've ever stayed in that boasts not only that it offers Gigabit Ethernet to the room, but that it has its very own direct peering link to the PAIX or indeed any IX. That's knowing your customers.
Unfortunately, they didn't make any mention of their reliable DHCP server, which shat about five minutes after I checked in...
First impression: if I lived here, I'd spend more time in the office. Feels further from SF than SF feels from London.
Wow, ToS really is touchy about this place isn't he?
I had a really bad Chinese last night...
I wonder if the British presence in Hong Kong raised expectations for Chinese food all the way back in the UK. Most Chinese food in the US is bad Chinese food, IME.
63: Are you properly taking account of the indefinite article in 62?
Is the "a" in 62 a Britishism that I don't understand?
Random Chinese food I've had in the UK (in the sense of passing a typical-looking Chinese restaurant and deciding to go in, with no prior knowledge of it) has been far, far superior to similar Chinese food in the US.