#!/usr/bin/env python 

from datetime import date, timedelta

conception_date = date(year=2008, month=11, day=2)
today = date.today()
babys_age = today - conception_date

print "Baby's age"
print "    from conception"
print "        in days: %d" % babys_age.days
print "        in weeks: %.2f" % round(babys_age.days / 7.0, 2)

babys_age += timedelta(14)

print "    from LMP"
print "        in days: %d" % babys_age.days
print "        in weeks: %.2f" % round(babys_age.days / 7.0, 2)

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This morning I was trying to pull data off an old 2.5″ laptop ATA drive. I popped in a USB/Firewire enclosure and plugged it into my Mac. The Mac popped up a message saying it shut down that USB port because something was drawing too much power.

Silly me, I figured that maybe the Mac didn’t have enough juice and my wife’s Asus Windows laptop would, and what’s the worst that could possibly happen, maybe it would pop up a similar error and refuse to work.

Plugged it in. A few seconds later, the laptop powered down and now it refuses to power up with or without any USB stuff hooked up and with or with out the AC adapter plugged in. It seems dead as a door nail.

Seriously? Folks make laptops that don’t have any over-current protection? Apparently, Apple thought to include both hardware and software support for that condition. And this Asus laptop was not exactly a cheap laptop. And Asus generally has a good reputation I thought.

I thought maybe it just blew a fuse and I could replace it, but now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fuse in anything digital.

Aside from checking whether this laptop is under warranty, I have a feeling I’m pretty much screwed, but thought I’d throw it out there to see if there’s anything else I could try…

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We just got finished with the annual falling of annoying “cotton” from nearby cottonwood trees. I hate this stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23030157@N02/2557404338/

We do our best to sweep it up, but then it falls again. Eventually it stops after a couple of weeks, but not before coating our yard and even parts of our garage in white fluff.

Any ideas how to deal with this stuff?

I was thinking a gigantic fan that sucks the stuff in and funnels it into a computer-controlled cotton gin, that uses it to make shirts.

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Was going through old files today and happened upon a bunch of content from 1995 – back when I was doing researchy stuff at LLNL in Livermore, California and NPAC in Syracuse, New York.

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I beat Halo 3 on Legendary yesterday. Woo hoo!

Nothing that’s never been said before — Halo 3 is a great game, but the level “Cortana” is really fricking annoying. So many Flood, so little ammo, and so easy to get lost. Also, tons of Cortana and Gravemind moments that are really irritating. I did, however, have an easier time with it than I remember having when I played it on Normal months ago, due to a few stategies:

• Avoiding combat wherever possible and running a lot. There’s just too much Flood to kill and it would take a long time and use up all your ammo. You often can run right through whole areas. Sometimes you will die and sometimes you might make it, if you try a few times. Some people speedrun pretty much the whole level. I took a hybrid approach, thinning out the Flood, where I thought I could do it and make escape easier.
• Take the high road. I found that generally when I ran around on “rafters” on the upper level, there was much less resistance.
• Using cloaking in some of the harder areas allows you to run through them.
• For the part, where you have to expose and then destroy the three reactor access points, I used cloaking to get to the center and expose the targets and then I ran back to the hallway to where I rescued Cortana and was able to take out the 3 targets from there at leisure with the Brute Shot. I didn’t have much luck doing it all in one go, though I’ve seen people do it in videos. It seemed hard, so I searched for an easier way and I found it.

The last level, “Halo” was easier and more fun than “Cortana”.

All in all, Legendary is definitely more challenging than Normal, but not as bad as I had imagined. It’s definitely pretty fun, because it usually forces you to be a bit more clever in how you approach things (something which is easier to do once you’ve beaten the game on Normal and know generally what the missions and maps look like).

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My Xbox 360 had the dreaded RRoD a couple of weeks ago. Much to my delight and surprise, I got it working again this weekend by taking the sucker apart and reapplying a super-thin layer of Arctic Silver thermal compound on the GPU.

I even managed to play an hour or two of BioShock.

Keeping my fingers crossed that it stays fixed…

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Our vacation to Hawaii (Kauai and Oahu) was great. We’re back in the Bay Area.

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