Another Journal Article Another TIF Debacle

I quite simple cannot fathom the logic behind journal submittal rules that demand you upload figures in .tif format at 600 dpi, then put strict, tight file size limits on the submittal package!

You've already specified that my figures will be enormous; don't tell me I have to be under 30 MB. Go to hell, assholes.

And the submittal is 100% web based with a Java app checking compliance at every step. "Sorry, it's not us refusing your submittal for trivial shit; it's the system!"

Stupid .TIF

I really don't know how it happened that the .tif (tagged image format) became the go-to, most demanded, image format for journal submittals. It's really horribly inefficient. Some plots that consist of really fine, orthogonal lines look slightly better as .tifs rather then .jpgs. Slightly.

I just finished rescuing a file that actually exceeded the size limit of MS Word 2007. It had 27 images and was over 700 Mb in size. Word will not open files greater than 512 Mb in size.

I can understand a maker of word processing software having an upper size limit on the files that it will deal with, but if you're going to insert a check that refuses to open a file greater than that max size, insert another $%&*ing check that prevents me from saving my files if they're going to be that big. (And before any of you smug m____f___ers tells me "That's what you get for using that Microsquash stuff..." at least have the decency to verify that this problem does not exist in your favorite MS Word alternative and be prepared to provide some kind of evidence.)

Anyway, a neat trick you can do with a .doc file, is change the extention to .zip and open it with your favorite compressed-file utility. The document will be there, broken down and laid out in its naked .xml glory for you to pick at, rescue text, or remove gargantuan figure files.

I replaced the .tif files with .jpg files that look (to me) every bit as good as the horribly oversized .tif files (same resolution, different compression). The new file is 9 Mb in size.

Journal editors who demand .tif files are going on my list.

Peace and Quiet At Last

Blogging from the office. Just wanted to mention how very peaceful it is here.

As I've mentioned before, The Sarcastic Weasel works in what is, truth told, a hole. Actually, a basement with frequent flooding problems. As a result, I cannot leave my computer tower on the floor. Granted, for fan, heat, and dust related reasons, you're not supposed to do so anyway, but who ever does what they're supposed to do?

Instead of being out of sight, out of mind, and out of earshot on the floor, my PC tower lives on top of some metal shelving nearly at ear level. The problem I have with this is that the processor is loud... freaking loud and annoying. Furthermore, it runs all the damn time... ALL THE DAMN TIME! It's always processing something... some damn system idle process.

First, I killed the distributed computing task (goodbye SETI at home... the BOINC is silly Berkeley nonsense anyway).

Next, I went on a total spybot killing rampage followed by an obsolete programs, files, and registry entry holy war (none survived).

Finally, I went into the process tab of the task manager and noted which processes were running and how much of the CPU they were claiming: nothing terrible, just 2-4%... all of the goddamn time.

Turns out the culprits were all related to Microsoft's indexing services. Indexing services are these neat software things included in Windows that run while you system is (theoretically) idle (and that hold a death-grip on your resources for quite some time after you try to use you system again) in order to make and store fancy lists of all of your files. The idea is that you can trade reduced system performance 100% of the time that you are trying to do crap, for a faster Windows file search those one or two times a month that you need to do a search. Also if you processor buzzes right in your ear, it makes sure that never shuts up.

To kill or not to kill? Not much of a decision, really.

For those that would like to kill the damn things on their own machine, follow this advice (Tweak #2 on the linked page):
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Easy-XP-Tweaks-t2780.html

It's totally worth it... My God, is it worth it. I can just sit here and bask in the silence... ahh... wait, is that the wind tunnel I hear?

Ego Odium Latin Lingua

I'm sure the title's wrong.

It rarely fails, given that I read more than I talk, that I can manage to make an ass of myself stumbling over the pronunciation of a word that I am quite familiar with, but don't particularly know how to pronounce.

Latin words are the worst for me.

Today's offender was a posteriori.

It sucks because in System Identification literature, a priori and a posteriori are not just Latin rhetorical flourishes, but technical terms.

Tell me I'm not alone.

NHL Credibility

The first game of the Stanley Cup Finals is at the 1st intermission.

I knew that the league desperately wants the Penguins to win this, for some strange reason I thought they'd still call the games somewhat fairly.

Instead we're getting chinsy penalties against the Wings and a goal waved off for no identifiable reason whatsoever.

I'm not sure why I should watch my team get tossed under the train so that the League's idea of the second coming of Gretsky/Jesus can hoist a cup before he's actually earned it.

As usual, the NHL is shooting itself in the foot. I'm pretty sure Bettman is still on te NBA's payroll. For the Wings to win this, they'll have to be not just the best team, but better by a wide margin to overcome the officiating.

Out Out!! You Demons of Stupidity!!

For the past... I don't know... forever years the Sarcastic Weasel has faithfully read the daily free Dilbert strip presented on Dilbert.com. I've caught every on for at least the past five years. I did not subscribe to the email list because I hate subscribing to things. Also, if I visit their site, they can pretend like I'm looking at their ads (No one looks at the S.W.'s ads... *sniffle*). I don't read it in the paper as, being someone not living in the freaking stone age, I don't get my news on a dead tree.

But, about a week ago, Dilbert.com changed their layout and got all Flashy and awful. The site is ugly, the archives are nigh unnavigable, and the page is busy and sad.

Today I noticed that I really haven't gone to read the thing in a couple of days and, instead of going and checking the archive, I just came here to blog. Furthermore, I don't really know if I'll bother to go back. The layout is that horrible. Scott, fix your damn website, it's a disgrace. And in the words of Saint Dogbert, "OUT OUT!! You Demons of Stupidity!!"

Red Wings Flush Another Post Season Down the Toilet

Well, the Wings are busy choking again. I'm not surprised... well, not very.

Friday, they need to have Stewart scratched and Hasek as a backup, otherwise they'll be golfing very soon.

Truth in Advertising

So essentially, I have been working in a climate controlled, basement dump for the past... few months I guess. Ever since I've started here, the University has been unable to solve the flooding problem in the part of the basement where my office is located. This fact is very ironic considering which department I work for. So our floors have been torn up and look like total crap for quite some time (so much so that students and faculty talk very derisively about us when they come to use the classrooms that are located here).

In addition, thanks to a very generous alumni donation, every graduate student office in the College of Engineering is having their antiquated and frightening office furniture replaced by new, high-quality furniture from a very reputable maker (that happens to be owned by said alum). Every office except our block, because of the flooding.

Now, this is fine. I know my current station in life. My occupation is categorized as "indentured servant" and it's really an accurate description. But for the past semester, I have been forced to endure the following mockery, posted throughout our office block:

Which is clearly a lie because this project will never be completed.

Thanks to the Sarcastic Weasel's "Truth in Advertising" campaign however, the signs have been rectified and the mockery ended. Thanks to me, we can all sleep peacefully in our beds, not because the situation will be remedied, but because we can all be honest about its indefinite duration.

Saving the NHL: Part 2

This is the second in a two-part series on saving the NHL. As mentioned in part-one, I'm not interesting in advancing ideas that will "save" the NHL for casual fans, increase TV ratings, or get back on a certain network that has terrible hockey coverage and charges for half of its poorly written, poorly thought out, and under-researched online articles. Instead, I have two modest and reasonable proposals to make the game better for dedicated fans such as myself. The first proposal is actually quite easy to implement and that is to protect the players. For the love of God, they're your product; protect them. The second improvement is much more difficult to implement, but is also necessary: TRAIN THE OFFICIALS.

I understand that the NHL is a very fast game. I understand that four guys in stripes cannot see everything that occurs on the ice when 12 guys are buzzing around. I also understand the people, players and officials, have bad days, but BY GOD! the officiating in the NHL is the worst in any major sport. I don't have time nor energy to list the problems with the officiating, but anyone who has watched a large number of NHL games over the past few years knows what I mean.

The NHL, in tinkering with the game to appeal to fair-weather fans, revises the rules a lot regularly, revises the definitions of various penalties: hooking, interference, goaltender interference, etc. Because the definitions keep changing, it is important that the rules be applied consistently. Consistency from game to game, from referee to referee, is a lot to ask, I know. But consistency from period to period would be nice. Both the S.W. and his lovely wife enjoy watching hockey, but due to S.W.'s unpaying job, money is tight to see games in person. Because we are Red Wings fans, upper bowl tickets are $50 a piece after the Ticketmaster anal-rape surcharge. I want that, when I pony up $100 for tickets, $15 for parking, and $12 for beer, I can feel comfortable that I will see a fair contest in which the hardest working team will win. When S.W. and his wife want last time, we watched a game in which was decided not by the play on the ice, but the incompetence of the referees. In the early part of the game, the Osgood put his glove over the puck to freeze it, the opposing forward did not try to play the puck, he kneed Osgood in the head to dislodge the puck. Fifteen seconds later, the puck was in the net. Later, down 3-2, the Wings have a tying goal waved off for phantom goaltender interference that was called based on Tomas Holmstrom's reputation rather than the actual situation in the game. Competent refereeing: 2-3 Redwings win, Actual refereeing: 3-2 Redwings loss.

When I watch an NFL contest, I am always amazed at how many times I watch instant replay of a play where I originally disagreed with the on-field call only to see that the ref got it exactly right at full speed. In the NHL, that almost NEVER happens. The referees are wrong so often, it is unreal how little use of instant replay they NHL makes. What really gets me is that NFL referees have day jobs; NHL refs are the supposed professionals.

To fix it:
1.) More training for referees.
2.) Financially penalize referees for calling reputation based penalties.
3.) Financially penalize referees for totally blown calls.
4.) Fire Dan O'Halleran.
5.) When replay clearly shows an obviously blown call, allow it to be revised.
6.) Allow fans to vote off referees American Idol style (well, maybe not, but something to make them accountable... sheesh!)

Motivation on the Upswing

According to this helpful graph:



I should be able to graduate in another 5 years or so. So, yay!

Also, it looks like I have some serious de-motivation in my near future. Hmm, I'd have to bet on Lenny to the one to cause it. A preemptive curse upon you, Lenny. No wonder I posted those pictures of you.

More Signs from Above

There are days that I get the distinct impression that my data is trying to tell me something. This is a histogram of analog-to-digital output by bin. It should only have three bins with non-zero values provided that my circuit is not too noisy.

Instead, there seems to be another message from God.

Maybe I'm paranoid though.

Divine Research Inspiration

We were doing modal testing on a cable-stay bridge in central Taiwan in the middle of the night. The bridge was covered in lights: lights for the street, lights for the cables, but none of them were on.

I was tasked with documenting the work, which was actually impossible given the soul-crushing darkness, but even in such darkness lies the possibility of grace. God his-own-self had an addition to make in the lab notebook.

What did he write, you ask?
"Remember my beloved children: always use an anti-aliasing filter."