The Mystical Engineer

Uncorrected Proof - not for sale

2007-03-23T21:50:26Z

"You have been selected to review The Serpent Bride by Sara Douglass. Your Advanced Readers Edition should arrive at your address within 14 days via U.S. Postal Service."

This is very cool! Picked the book up from the post office today. I know what I'm doing over shabbos!

For those who'd like to join in the fun:
http://harpercollins.com/members/firstlook/

Keep an eye out for my review...

Reserving Harry Potter

2007-03-20T18:10:53Z

Here's a tip for those who'd like to borrow the next Harry Potter book instead of buying it -

You can reserve it from the library and get it the day it comes out!
But make sure you reserve it from the "Juvenile" section, which has a lot more copies of the book and a lot fewer reserve requests than the adult section.
Here's the link:

NYPL Harry Potter (JUV)

Oil & Neon

2006-12-20T03:37:52Z

If the miracle of the oil symbolizes our uniqueness and our fight against assimilation, because oil does not mix with other liquids; then if you're using an electric menorah, should you should make sure you use fluorescent bulbs, because they're filled with noble gases?

Hameivin Yavin

2006-06-13T17:05:08Z

Every piece of equipment bears the same [United Kilns] logo - a U followed by a K, each letter enclosed by its own circle... All over the world, it stands for quality. The genuine article. Kosher. The real McCoy.

- One of the many inside jokes in David Brin's Kiln People

Metro Diary Entry

2006-05-29T04:26:31Z

Check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/nyregion/29diary.html

A Simile

2006-05-19T02:37:16Z

I am evil like chocolate is evil.

Ta Da!

2006-03-05T08:13:29Z

After resolution of technical difficulties by mbarr:

http://www.springbird.net/

(To download the mp3, right-click on the link and hit 'Save Target As.')

Shiur update - and Ode to Free Downloads

2006-03-03T00:52:34Z

OK, I have transferred the casette tape of my shiur to an mp3 file. It was not that difficult to do - all you need is a cheap cable (+ a tiny adapter) you can buy at Radio Shack and a freeware audio editing software download (I got SC Audio Converter).
The file ended up being 40 megs. I tried ratcheting down the kbps, and got the file down to 5 megs, but the compression made me unintelligible on the tape, so I think I'll have to go with the large file.
And I have the source sheets in pdf format. An actual transcript of my notes will take a bit longer.

Now all I need is a place to upload these files....
mbarr mentioned something to me about having web space on Tuesday night, but I was a little preoccupied. And I haven't been able to get into contact with him today yet. Maybe he's still sleeping... OK, I'll be nice - he's probably catching up on all his backlogged work that accumulated when he was in Israel.

Belated thanks to Josh Yuter for helping me get Hebrew support and OpenOffice for my computer and to mbarr for pointing me towards a free pdf writer.

Phew!

2006-03-01T03:48:08Z

Shiur is over! Now I have time to take care of other things, like taxes!
Schrodinger shiur notes to follow - I do have them written down in ink, so I just have to transcribe them.

Userpic

2006-02-26T21:07:24Z

Hey, look - I found one.
It's from a painting in the Manchester City Art Gallery. (No, I wasn't in Manchester recently, but some relatives used to live there, and my parents got a book from the Art Gallery.)
John Frederick Lewis painted it in 1857. It's called "The Coffee Bearer."
No, I did not pick it because I like coffee. I didn't want to put a real picture online, and my sister once said that the person in the painting looks like me.
What do you folks think? I like the little coy grin.

Snow!

2006-02-12T14:44:13Z

It's a perfect day to blog! Nothing else is going on during this blizzard. Well, maybe I'll write more later. It's time for breakfast.

Baruch Dayan HaEmmes

2006-02-09T14:01:21Z

I yesterday attended the levaya of a good family friend and rav of the community where I lived for most of my life. I'll post more thoughts on the levaya later - it was a sad, painful, and meaningful experience. I had the privilege of sharing it with so many people I grew up who were at the levaya, and I want to share it with you. Stay tuned.

Schrodinger's Cat

2006-01-25T20:40:10Z

Someone recently linked to my blog in reference to the relationship between Quantum Physics and Halacha.

Now, while this is a topic that is dear to my heart, as well as the subject of a shiur I am to give in two weeks, there is nothing on my blog that elucidates my views on this issue! So it is useless to link to me for this.

Here's a question for you loyal readers: on this blog, should I discuss my views on Shcrodinger's Cat and Tanur Shel Achnai?

Engineering Jokes

2006-01-25T20:33:04Z

Check out this website:
http://www.inflection-point.com/jokes.php

Part of me wants to use this one as part of my e-mail signature:
Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited over boring things.

Here's a joke that hasn't made it onto that website yet:
Q: How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb:
A: Into what?
(Credit for this one goes to the comic strip "Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet".)

And last but not least, here's the text to "The Engineering Song", which I wrote for my office's holiday party last year:

The Engineering Song
(to the tune of The Chanukah Song by Adam Sandler)

Hey, hey engineer
It’s that time of year.
You should have no fear,
Because you’re an engineer!

Engineering is
The art of applied science.
Every engineer has tried
To take apart a household appliance.

If you think you’re the only kid in town
Without a liberal arts degree,
Here are some people who are engineers,
Just like you and me….

Scott Adams draws
Dilbert on a drafting machine.
While Rowan Atkinson plays
Blackadder and Mr. Bean.

Guess who can calculate
Their watts and ohms and volts:
John Sununu, Thomas Edison,
And from the band ‘Boston’ – Tom Scholtz!

Brezhnev was an engineer,
Jimmy Carter is one more;
Put them together,
What a well-designed Cold War!

Lee Iacocca
Could design his own Chrysler car
We’ve also got Joe Friedman,
Who’s the ‘J’ from J&R.

Stand up tall and give a cheer
Because you’re an engineer.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Is an electrical engineer.

Cindy Crawford –
Not an engineer!
She began college as a Chem E.,
But quit to start her modeling career!

We got directors
Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock,
Also Tom Landry and Kevin Brown,
So don’t say that we’re not jocks!

Boris Yeltsin
Has an analytical mind.
Neil Armstrong made
A giant leap for engineering-kind.

So many engineers
Are in the talk-show biz!
Jerry Springer isn’t,
But Montel Williams is!

Design your nuts and bolts and gears,
And tell your friends you’ll persevere.

Calculate tension and shear
Because you’re an engineer.

So don’t let yourself get too austere,
Party at the end of the year!
Sit back, relax and have a beer,
And be a happy, happy, happy, happy
Engineer.

Numbers in order

2005-12-09T12:36:24Z

Maybe someone can help me with this:

Why are the numbers on a telephone listed from the top down, while the numbers on a keyboard are listed from the bottom up?

Movie Non-Recommendation

2005-11-29T01:20:51Z

People,
don't see Syriana. It's by the same guy who did Traffic, and the movies share a theme: There are two types of people - the corrupt, and the dead.
I left the theater shuddering, trying to rid myself of all the sleaziness, smarminess, and, dare I say, unctuousness I had just witnessed on screen. That having been said, the actors' performances were excellent, especially that of Alexander Siddig, the actor formerly known as Siddig El Fadil, i.e., Dr. Bashir from Deep Space Nine. Apparently, he changed his name to make it easier to pronounce. Imagine that.

And in the office fish tank:
Somehow, the temperature of the water shot way up. It must have been above 90 degrees - too high for the tank thermometer to display (the thermometer goes up to 86 degrees). A colleague theorized that the heating element somehow got stuck in the open position. Now, it felt really nice to hold my cold hands up against the glass, but we were worried about the fish. They were really frisky, darting around the tank - the symptom of cold-blooded animals in a heated atmosphere. It's funny. We warm-blooded folk move faster when the air gets cold.
And so ironic. In the mechanical engineers' fish tank, first the pump breaks, contaminating the water and killing most of the fish. Then the temperature control goes haywire. What is it we do for a living, again?

New Goals for Shabbos Meals

2005-11-08T03:45:49Z

I have decided to try to meet new people at Shabbos meals.
So:
One meal will be with my friends, whom I love dearly and am very comfortable with...
...but I had a slight epiphany/motivation when I remarked to a UWS ChemE that I loved spending time with my friends, but was not meeting eligible bachelors for myself because my friends are a little to the left of me. To which the ChemE responded, "Your friends are a lot to the left of you!" See, there's a difference between whom you can be friends with, and whom you can share a bedroom and a kitchen and a life with. More practical considerations come into play. So...
I will try to spend the other meal, each Shabbos, meeting new people who are a bit closer to me in practical practice, and hope to find a route to my counterpart in ideology and emotion and physical attraction and that nameless undefinable thing that puts it all together and makes it love.
But I did miss my friends this past Shabbos when I tried this new routine for the first time. I left a meal thinking, "Did that comment come out as stupidly as I think it did? Did I totally alienate these people and they'll never want to see me again? Why, why, why in the world did they not put water/juice out on the table until the third course - leaving me to drink a tad too much of the beverage that was on the table at the start of the meal..."
Of course, it wasn't that bad. There's just that little brain-mouth control valve that loosens about the same amount when I get tired, on a sugar high, or a bit tipsy. See, the first two have happened often enough that I don't do anything too egregious. I just said stuff I'd rather not have said, and would not have said, if my brain could have reacted fast enough before my mouth opened. But nothing too bad, nothing irredeemable. Just foolish/unwise. Kind of kills that wise, suave, reticent image I'd like to cultivate.
So I wanted a friend there to go over the situation with afterward, to tell me that I didn't say anything that bad. Someone who would have kicked me under the table if things had gotten out of hand.

First-time Daffer

2005-11-08T03:20:23Z

So, I gave a gemara shiur for the first time. And it wasn't aggadita, either.

It seems to have gone over well. I got at least one rave review in writing (see towards the end of this post by MarGavriel), and a few verbal kudos.
And now for kudos in the other direction:
Software:
Thank you Daf Yomi on the Web, for your excellent mp3 shiurim that I listened to all week in preparation.
Thank you Jewish Content - for allowing me to download Gemara text (+Rashi!) to my Palm Pilot. (Also thank you to PilotYid for the link to the "Jewish Content" site.)
Hardware:
Thank you iPod - for allowing me to listen to daf on the subway (and to music, when I got daffed out).
Thank you Palm Pilot - so I could read gemara text without using the laps of the people on either side of me.
Thank you Artscroll - I am not too ashamed to admit I need a crutch, not having spent years becoming familiar with Gemara syntax.
Bioware:
And last, but most certainly not least, thank you to our Marathon Community Daffer - FreshSamantha - for making this all possible.

Marvin had it right

2005-09-23T11:45:05Z

Thanks to New York Public Library's e-books, I've just had an epiphany:
Terry Pratchett is Douglas Adams done *right*.
In explanation:
I've finally read _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, which I'd never gotten through before because I'd felt it was the non-science-fiction-lover's one foray into the genre (see #1 below). Not enough science to be hard science fiction (though I am now revising my opinion on that), too much funny business, and not enough character development to be the kind of science fiction I like.
And I finally figured out what got me so annoyed. Yeah, there were funny jokes. But there was nothing *behind* them. Anyone who's read any Discworld novel has to know what I mean - I want comic relief with *gravitas*. Humor needs a serious base upon which to work to its utmost, to make it poignant. The best laughter happens when your only alternative is to cry. (Ugh, that's a terrible aphorism. Does someone have a suggestion to make it better?)

And, as a non-sequitor:
A Bruriah freshman I was riding the train with yesterday told me the following, which anyone who knows how off-peak round trip tickets on NJ Transit work will appreciate:
The conductor asked her for her ticket. When she gave it to him, he said, "No, the other way." So she proceeded to rotate the ticket 180 degrees and handed it to him again. She did not remember if he was amused or annoyed by this.
_____________________________________
1. Whenever I mentioned to a normal (well, almost-normal) person that I liked sci-fi, _HG to the G_ was always the one book that that person would tell me that he'd (and not so often, she'd) read and loved.
2. Matt, can you tell me how to add links as footnotes in my entries? This is annoying.
3. Matt, while you're at it, can you tell me how to put italics in my entries? The old-fashioned asterisks get annoying.
4. Matt, if you're getting impatient with my requests, just point me to a site where I can learn to do this stuff on my own. Thanx.

Primary Day

2005-09-13T17:22:55Z

1. Do all you Democrats know who you're voting for?
2. Do you even know what positions people are running for?
3. Do you even know you're supposed to vote today?

As for myself, the answers to 1 and 2 are a resounding "No!" My mom (both my parents possess a healthy dose of civic duty) told me to check out the candidates' websites to see what their positions are on the issues I care about, but who has time to do that when one is working on an end-of-this-month drawing submission deadline? No dead time at work for me right now (except for the two minutes I'm taking to update this blog - I knew it would distract me at work! What are the odds - I don't post for two months, and then I post while I'm at work.)
I know whom I'm voting for to be the mayoral candidate, and I have an inkling as to whom I wish to be Manhattan DA, but other than that, I'm clueless beyond the name-recognition of people who inundated me with mail flyers, phone calls, and those who yelled in my face at the subway.

Vote or trip down the 96th Street Station stairs!
(and grab a free newspaper while you're at it)

Building Collapse Update

2005-07-14T17:29:38Z

Here's the 1010WINS story link:
http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_195121851.html

There's a British couple who just moved in to the floor below me who, when I met them, said they were worried about noise from the construction site. What must they think now?

Building Fires and Collapses - What am I doing in Manhattan?

2005-07-14T14:21:26Z

Hey, everyone.
You remember that Gristedes a block away from me? The one they're demolishing to make way for a high-rise? The one someone spray-painted "No yuppie condos" on the outside of?
Well, I just got a call from my parents that they heard on 1010WINS that the building collapsed as they were trying to demolish it. I'm off to check the radio.
Depending on the debris conditions, I may be mooching off one of you for a place to stay tonight...

At least it's not a fire, it's not 3:00 AM, and I'm not locked out of my apartment.

Itch, Itch, Itch, but at least I can cross the GWB

2005-07-11T22:09:53Z

Halp!

Went to the dermatologist today to have a skin allergy test done. They stuck these two big patches on my back, made up of all these little samples of potentially allergenic materials. Now here's the catch: I have to keep the darn things on for two days, and I can't get them wet. Anticipating this, I took a thorough shower this morning before I went, but it's sponge baths until Wednesday night. I get them removed on Wednesday, and then I go back on Friday so they can see if there are any lingering reactions.
I must be allergic to at least two materials, because there are two spots on my back that started itching like crazy a half-hour after I left the doctor's office (I'm almost positive one of them is where the nickel sample is). Will I have to bear this for two days?!?!
And you can't wear halter tops, or anything else low-cut in back, because the patches show, and they're really ugly. Just when I was going to take this week to cast off my tznius minhagim... Seriously, they didn't mention this fact before I got the patches put on, so I wonder what normal people do when they come in for the test and discover they're wearing a really big boat neck, or something.

And on another note, I finally applied for my free EZ-Pass. You guys no longer have an excuse to gripe at me when we visit NJ!

Unworthy, but...

2005-06-17T16:28:24Z

I know a journal entry after such a long absence deserves better than this, but I can't resist posting this quote from today's New York Times:

"In "Revenge of the Sith," Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is urged by his mysterious mentor to chop off the head of his enemy, Count Chocula - sorry, that's Count Dooku."

From Other Blogs

2005-05-25T23:38:04Z

This gem is from taylweaver's blog, a few posts back. I just missed the one-liner amidst the onslaught of all the other information:
"So that's how you schedule your own surprise party... make it someone else's."

And shame on mbarr for sending me a link to a page that has curse words on it. Granted, the actual phrase he told me to look up is actually clean, but I couldn't see that during the two seconds I had the browser open before I closed it. He really shouldn't do stuff like that to me at work.
See http://www.livejournal.com/users/mbarr/14443.html
Yes, using a foreign language is a way for TV to get around the FCC rules. Fantasy world-builders do that too, but they make up their own languages. Sometimes, the curse words make up the entire vocabulary of the new language. Using plenty of various gods' names, of course.

On another note, there was a news story on the radio (and on the front page of the NY Post)
about a guy who went to visit his arrested friend in the police station... only to get nabbed himself because he was standing right in front of his own 'Wanted' poster. As my mom, the ever-astute ADA, says (whenever Jay Leno has a funny criminal article on 'Headlines'), "It's easy to catch the *stupid* ones."